


Eye of a Needle

by aireagoir



Series: Yours, G. Miles [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Bucky Barnes Remembers, Canon-Typical Violence, Chemical Weapons, Coming Out, Cowbell Morita...can always use more, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Grief/Mourning, Homophobic Language, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Jarvis (Iron Man movies) is a Good Bro, LGBTQ Themes, M/M, MAAJ, Minor Character Death, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Not Captain America: The Winter Soldier Compliant, Period-Typical Homophobia, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Steve Rogers, Religion, Romance, Sam Wilson is a Gift, Slur as self-referencing joke, Some Humor, Terrorism, Thor Is Not Stupid, Tony Stark Has A Heart, realistic war scenarios, very minor suicidal thought
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-24
Updated: 2017-11-23
Packaged: 2018-07-26 13:14:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 19
Words: 63,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7575310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aireagoir/pseuds/aireagoir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Now that George Miles and Eduardo Alvarez call the Tower home, they're so much more than tailors for the Avengers. They respect the family they've been brought into and will stay standing alongside the Avengers no matter how challenging a situation might be.<br/>Fighting ISIL? Got it. Cracking new Hydra technology? Roger that. The spontaneous, SPECTACULAR global event that is Captain America coming out of the closet? Well...okay, the timing on that surprised a few people.<br/>Still.</p><p>Every day Steve wakes up wondering if today will bring the fight that finally sends him to hell for not being enough. The chance for a lasting, love-filled future has never been more than a pinprick of light in the darkness that can consume James Buchanan Barnes. Both men are so certain they'll never meet St. Peter at the gates that they'll follow each other into hell no matter the personal cost. What a shame they forgot who stands alongside them.</p><p>Heaven? Oh, please. George Miles will be DAMNED if he can't thread his boys from Brooklyn through the eye of a needle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This is the second book in the Mr. Miles series. Mr. Miles is an OC created after reading Owlet's "Infinite Coffee and Protection" series. "The Olds" characters are Owlet's creation and used here with her permission. Reading Owlet's "This, You Protect" will give insight into the AU where Mr. Miles and Eduardo reside. Mr. Miles, Eddie, DaNeesha and other minor OCs are my creation. Reading "The Stitch in Time" is recommended.
> 
> It should come as little surprise to learn I do not own the Marvel characters.
> 
> As with the first book, there will not be overly graphic or prurient violence/sexual content. However, there will be a few brief passages that are historically accurate regarding the behavior of ISIL/ISIS/Daesh. These will have a warning in the head of the chapter as well as an obvious start/stop mark. For those readers who prefer not to risk being triggered but want to read the story, simply skip over the portions that have ++++ at the top then resume your reading after the second set of ++++. 
> 
> Thank you to everybody who stayed with George and Eddie. Your comments and insights are deeply appreciated! Please come find me/chat/leave story prompts! I'm on Tumblr at kidof312.

 

********

 

They got up early that Thursday morning, put on their sharpest suits, and hurried to City Hall. Pepper had pulled some strings, so they were the first ones in. It was a very simple ceremony. A question from the registrar, production of some legal documents, a few words spoken in earnest. Then they signed, hugged, and beamed like they were the happiest men on earth. They had the legal proof—nobody could separate them now. The clerk offered to take their first official picture together, then off they went, back to a big day at work.

In New York adults could choose to be adopted, and they finally legalized the family they had already made in their hearts. George Miles and Eduardo Alvarez were legally father and son. Eduardo asked for an extra copy, because his dad insisted “some things belong on paper!” In this particular instance, he was right. They went back to the tailoring suite where DaNeesha threw confetti, Esther served muffins and Steve and Barnes had sent a balloon saying “It’s a Boy!” They had considered crossing out boy to write “man,” but that got a little into gay marriage territory, they thought. The big gift, from Tony, Pepper, and all their friends at the Tower, was unveiled after they ate muffins. The suite’s door had been covered in brown butcher paper. When opened, it revealed the door had a beautiful new design. Instead of a standard Tower plaque there was a large, lightly frosted glass panel laid into a solid walnut door. In big gold letters it proclaimed “Miles & Son Tailoring” with a smaller banner at the bottom saying “Exclusively at Stark Industries.”

George put one hand over his heart and the other around Eduardo’s shoulders.

“Eduardo, my boy,” he sighed, then shook his head in gentle gratitude. “Can you really even?”

 


	2. Love is Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Captain Rogers doesn’t come out of the closet.
> 
> Captain Rogers punches through the drywall, grabs the hanging rod to pulverize shelving, annihilates the framework then flips a live grenade over his shoulder while he casually walks away.  
> He.  
> Never.  
> Looks.  
> Back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A brief episode of violence is bracketed between ++++ signs.  
> A huge thank you to all of the Stitch in Time readers who were excited to come back. George is delighted to see you, and Eddie can't even right now.

********

 

There are several ways to come out of the closet. There’s the not–coming-out way, where people just know a person is gay and that’s that. The shy way, when family are told first, the sad shy way (where everybody _but_ family can be told), the politician approach—that’s campaigning on family values and moral fiber for 20 years until somebody finds the selfie you took with your Grindr date. For the famous there’s everything from the tabloid exposé, the talk show reveal or a tasteful spread in PEOPLE magazine, to the carefully orchestrated PR speech or even a heartwarming announcement of love that had waited all those years until gay marriage was finally legalized.

Everyone on the planet with access to a screen saw the Avengers way.

As a new brand of HYDRA was springing up, with ties to terror organizations like ISIL and Boko Haram, the Avengers found themselves fighting a different kind of war. This war had no specific front, no one line to hold, not even one “good” or “bad” side. It was a messy and complicated affair, so the only constant they could adhere to was trying to ensure that civilians weren’t being annihilated by the thousands or enslaved by any of the target organizations. It was a stop-gap solution agreed upon by Congress, the United Nations, and the team themselves. There was no way the Avengers could fight every fight, but they’d damn well try to keep up until a large coalition sent by the UN could attempt to bring peace in the enormous territories now threatened by extremists. The UN promised full support and a plan in place in 16-18 days.

It had been the ninth straight day of close combat. Everybody was running on fumes, with hardly enough sleep to stay standing but for the ridiculous protein/caffeine drinks Tony had developed and stocked. Natasha often found herself being the only point of contact with a town’s remaining civilians because the women were terrified of the men. Nat got it. This was about them, not her, so she did it their way. For one thing, she had Tony modify her suit so it wasn’t quite skin tight, then she dyed her hair a neutral dark brunette. She had even began wearing a small silk band around her neck that she could bring up to cover her hair, knowing the civilians appreciated the nod to their customs. In a way she found tough to articulate, this mission was personal to her; she knew young women were being kidnapped to be “wives” for the bastards. Girls shouldn’t be taken. Period. It’s not that she didn’t know her life had meaning, that she was special…but girls shouldn’t be taken.

She and Barton were organizing enormous convoys to a designated safety zone already set up with clean water, food, tents and a sewage plan. It wasn’t home, but it was safer for now and guarded heavily. Nat worked with two UN organizers while Clint was their eye in the sky. One of the UN organizers, a woman named Rina, didn’t understand why the handsome but intimidating man with the bow was always on top of a building or in a tree.

++++

Then one afternoon she had gone to bring back any lunch she could find for Nat, their other aid worker Adnan and Clint. She didn’t have time to scream when the man, enormous, reeking of sweat and tobacco, clasped a hand over her mouth and pushed her into the space where two concrete buildings had been abandoned. He shoved his hand to pull off her—and fell on top of her.

In seconds Clint was standing over them, rolling the man off her. She couldn’t hold back the vomit and screams of terror heaving out of her mouth as she kneeled on all fours in the dirt.

++++

Rina started to cry as the adrenaline and relief rushed out of her. Clint said something she didn’t understand. An enormous blond man came out of the sky and picked up her would-be attacker as though he was a bundle of clothes and threw him against the inside far wall of the abandoned building on their left. Since they had long since lost count of the customs of different people, Thor asked, “May I have your permission to lift you up and fly you back to Natasha?” Rina replied, “Yes, thank you. Will you please give me a moment to cover my hair?” Thor did so, then briefly explained exactly how he would like to hold her as they flew, trying to give the young woman some agency after her experience. She nodded and Thor grasped Mjolnir.

Clint did a quick sweep to see if the bastard had brought friends. Didn’t seem so; perhaps he was an opportunist, not moving with any particular group. He wiped off the arrow that had gone through the bastard’s skull then returned it to the quiver. Tony had given him a few that were designed for this very scenario—strong enough to kill the man but wouldn’t exit the other side, endangering the person being attacked. When he had received them all Clint said was “Thanks. It’s fucking sick we need ’em.” Tony had replied, “Strictest confidence?” Clint nodded.

“When Pepper told me why you’d need them I didn’t eat for two days.” Tony and Clint paused for a second then the archer replied “I’ll use ’em til they fall apart in my hands. Tony, they take eight year olds. I’m out for their blood and I don’t give a shit who knows.”

 

With an hour to go before darkness, the trucks are still being loaded and Clint signals to Nat the front is headed their way. He’s barely broken off before she sees a goddamned press vehicle roll up beside her shouting questions about what she’s doing and how will this help? Nat’s giving orders to Adnan and Rina, plus the only three natives that speak English and one who speaks Russian. There are terrified screaming children clinging to their mothers and the dust of combat clearly visible on the horizon when Thor lands a few feet from the press vehicle and says, “We have no time. You must send them now, Natasha, for I fear we will not hold past the setting of the sun.”

Christine Uman’s cameraman assuring her he got all of that, she then runs to the front of the convoy, clipping on her mike so she can begin to speak. As she narrates what’s happening behind her, she watches her cameraman pale and take two steps back. She gets as far as “what are you doing, Kenneth?” before she hears the Hulk. Turning to see him was a mistake. There’s no way she can ignore this development and continue on her previous “human struggle” angle, so as the trucks are speeding away one by one and the Hulk is throwing the enemy’s own vehicles at the hordes of men coming over the horizon, she valiantly tries for one last file-worthy report before they run for their lives. The woman, Nat, turns around, screams “Cap! 3:00!” as Captain America, the real Captain America, comes running out of a dust storm of Humvees and trucks. As Cap uses his shield to block rapid gunfire from one side and makes hand signals with the other hand as he runs, a man in the tree she hadn’t even seen suddenly shoots arrows that explode as the last of the UN aid trucks are speeding away. The UN worker Rina shouts “I’ll never forget what you did for me, Clint!” He nods then looks up to assess ETA of their own extraction.

One minute later Iron Man has landed a small armored plane to the left of where she’s standing, and Thor suddenly lands beside her and says, “You must leave now or you’ll be killed!” Nat and Clint sprint for the plane, Christine’s view of what happened to the Hulk was blocked because a new creature released from the depth of hell was running with all his might. After the Hulk, he’s the scariest man she has ever seen in real life; dressed in all black with an enormous, silver arm obviously made for savage destruction. Pieces of wild, brown hair flying out of a ponytail are whipping in the wind. His face is smeared with black and blood, he holds weapons that he doesn’t even aim as he fires. The red star on his bionic arm viscerally magnifies how barbaric, how _inhuman_ he is. As she runs for her life, Kenneth filming the entire way, she turns on her vehicle as he films the team piling into the plane. The last thing she registers is shock as the terrifying man with the metal arm and wild hair takes a flying leap into the plane, with Captain America pulling him in by the arm. In her surprise she hears herself scream, “He’s one of the _good_ guys?”

More than one type of legend was born the second Christine Uman filed the footage of Captain Steven Grant Rogers, hero to many generations of Americans, as he let nine days of exhaustion, fear and intense love come raging out from the center of his soul. His helmet off, face covered in dust and blood, Cap reached down to pull up the door as he shouted “I really, really hope so, lady, ’cause he’s the fucking love of my life.”

********

 Once extraction was complete, JARVIS broadcast a Tower-wide alert reporting that all of the Avengers were alive and on the move. This was the most anticipated alert of the day (or night), and most of the people in the tower didn’t bother to hide behind pretense; they cheered, cried or thanked God (however they saw that concept) when it came. Everyone watched the recently installed sets of clocks, all of which now had one set for Eastern Standard and one set for wherever the team was. The building was working in a 24-hour configuration with everybody hyper-aware their unit might need to provide critical mission support at any moment. The E&E, eyes and ears (satellite tracking, espionage, government intelligence, etc.) were on 12-hour shifts and bunks had been set up in every spare room available so people who didn’t live nearby wouldn’t waste precious downtime commuting. People with families had their children visit them in a big, friendly room with toys, cookies and milk.

Tony had declared all caffeinated drinks free for the duration, so the coffee bar started to look more like a USO aid and comfort station. Every room had televisions showing news reports, real-time feeds from comms and status reports as Iron Man sent them to the building through JARVIS. The money people were doing daily battle with Congress and private weapons contractors, the lawyers were up to their neckties in international jurisdiction and the kitchen delivered everything to go, assuming people ate as they worked.

Naturally, Pepper got a private report with casualties, difficulties, number of innocent people extracted and so forth. Pepper smiled when she got that last number. He might be a billionaire genius playboy philanthropist, but she recognized a move to dazzle a girl when she saw one. She always sent a message for his eyes only…just a little reminder she was still impressed he was a superhero.

For the first time in many years, Mr. Miles found himself pulling double duty, part of the team that supported the good guys. The tailoring suite had set up a laundry service for anyone not leaving the building. People could bring in their clothes, have them washed and dried in two hours, then be picked up. Nobody was bothering with suits and ties except the government liaisons. Everybody was in comfortable clothing and sturdy shoes. Once in a while DaNeesha would stick her head in to get the latest from Eddie, but never stopped more than a minute. They had taken her off delivering food because her abdomen was starting to be troublesome again. Her new duty was interesting though; she tracked where the team was headed next and sent Nat updates on what she could expect in terms of customs, beliefs, current socioeconomic issues, elections, religion and pop culture. She looked for anything that may help Nat know what she was walking into as a woman who would be giving orders in this environment. DaNeesha had no set schedule. As soon as they were wheels-up to the next place, her butt was at her station researching like, well, like it was life or death. If anything happened to Natasha because DaNeesha failed to warn her she’d never forgive herself. The last thing Nat said before she ran out of the building was “it’s a war, DaNeesha. You’re never gonna know everything. Give me whatever you can.” It turned out DaNeesha was good at it. It was gossiping, but you looked through a different set of papers to talk all about somebody who had it comin’, anyway.

********

In the plane, a thousand things were happening at the same time. They were headed to their next target area, but Tony relayed that E&E had solid intel ISIL had decided to hunker down for two nights and move on the third day, so the team had 48 hours to rest, heal and gain some perspective before the next rescue mission would get going. It was desperately needed; they were all sleepy. The modified team members required less sleep, but Barnes and Rogers had survived on two hours a night for the last seven days. Barnes looked at Cap, who had bloody streaks clumping his hair together, and three days of stubble that was a little darker than Barnes might have guessed it would be. The last nine days had brought back many fragments of the war where they had started. He wondered if After Steve had ever taken three days off from shaving. He should do it more often, in Bucky’s opinion.

He tenderly held Steve’s hand while he said to the group “Well, we were going to wait to tell you, and we know you’re going to say we’re too young, we have our whole lives ahead of us, but Steve and I are really in love.” As usual, the things that came out Barnes’ mouth were the things that were going to be the living end of Captain Steven Grant Rogers. He laughed so loudly he hurt his ribs ( _shit, four cracked, hope 48 hours is enough_ ) and brought everybody else back from their own little world. Naturally they had all known for months. There were some…lingering curiosities about the precise physical nature of their relationship, but that really _wasn’t_ going to get talked about no matter who the hell asked.

With everybody laughing as much as they could without hurting themselves more, Bruce looked over to Cap and said “I know Internet attention isn’t your favorite kind of attention, but you broke the Web, Steve. Maria says there isn’t anybody, anywhere, talking about the mission itself. A spontaneous gay pride parade has already been started via Twitter, they’re walking across the Brooklyn Bridge as we speak. NYPD’s conservative estimate for the parade is 100,000 people within an hour.”

Nat looked up from her phone. “In Boston, San Francisco, Chicago and Minneapolis, too.”

Tony stuck his head back and “Guys, I told Pepper to sic her PR people on the worst ones. They’re ruthless SOBs. They’ll literally try and crawl into your bunk tonight to get photos. Or maybe you want that. I don’t know how you live.”

Clint looked up. “#CaptainPride. London, Paris, Mexico City and Rome selling out of rainbow flags then they sew your shield in the middle of it. A spontaneous party broke out in Tokyo, for God’s sake. They want gay marriage to be talked about publicly in Japan.”

Thor rumbled his hearty, easy laughter. “I am happy for you, shield brothers. I am sorry that your customs have made your way of life unusual in this fashion, but it is obvious your bond cannot be broken. What do you say to some mead from Asgard the next time I can make a delivery?” Barnes leaned over and shook his hand, then chided, “Yes, please get my boyfriend drunk again. Please, Thor, I beg of you.” Another easy laugh, another private inventory of how much everything hurt.

Barnes looked at Steve. “Well? Do we issue a short statement now and buy ourselves some time?”

Steve grinned. “I already said what was on my mind. But yeah, point taken. Jarvis, would you please issue a statement from both of us that I never intended to, nor shall I ever, diminish who Peggy Carter was to me. I did love her and she will always remain my best girl. However, now that we live in a time when we’re free to be who we truly are, Sgt. Barnes and I know we have always loved each other and we always will. That, and while we’re deeply grateful for the stunning show of support for our relationship, we ask that everyone remember we’re in the middle of a mission that affects thousands of lives and we will not be taking questions or making any more statements.” He checked in with Bucky, who nodded. It would do the trick for now. They’d eventually have to say more, which was weird because it was nobody’s business, but that was part of the deal, being famous in the 21st century.

It was a good thing they didn’t go looking for the response. There was everything from Fox News running it over and over with “fucking” bleeped out and a yellow banner flashing across the screen screaming ALERT ALERT ALERT, to Rachel Maddow crying she was laughing so hard, as she played it during her “Best New Thing in the World Today” segment. She laughed even harder as a staffer cheerfully handed over fistfuls of cash to the FCC representative to play it unedited as many times as would fit into the last ten minutes of her show. When the FCC rep told her there would be an additional fine because it used “the f word” and her show was on at 8:00 in the Central Time Zone, Rachel laughed so hard she fell off her chair. An assistant came out with an MSNBC credit card and said “Here. The daily maximum charge amount is $250,000.”

Peggy’s relatives the world over had media camped on their lawn (“We know he had a different but true love for her and we’re very pleased he’s found someone that makes him happy again.”) plus Esther and Lidia were shocked to have reporters calling or knocking at all hours to get a quote. Lidia was getting so fired up Esther finally told her she should really write it down if she felt that strongly about the whole thing. How did they even know about Esther and Lidia? Lidia called George, who asked Mr. Jarvis to do something, and then that wonderful young driver Jess came and put a stop to all the nonsense in a real hurry _. Thank God for that Jess,_ they both thought. _What would we do without him?_

George and Eddie got Jarvis to put a block on their phones, so they didn’t have any problem. George thought it was absolutely spectacular. He also had constant indigestion, watching the Avengers in the middle of swirling black flags and men yelling while shooting. Naturally he worried about all of the team—each were special to him in their own way. But nobody could replace Steve. George’s hero as a young man, and true friend as he found himself nearer the end of his life. Of course you couldn’t really think of Steve without Barnes now, or “Jimmy” to his adopted set of doting grandparents. Jimmy deserved every kindness, every gentle and well-meaning consideration. He stopped for a moment, remembering the day he watched Mr. Stark open up Barnes’ metal arm. The physical torture and emotional agony Barnes had chosen to live through again so everyone would finally know that while George’s father did indeed die by his hand, it was not a murder. It was a mercy killing that let a condemned man die painlessly, knowing a prayer would be said for him which comforted his Jewish soul.

George had been shocked when the announcement came just three weeks after the surgery that they all had to ship out. HYDRA had fortified ISIL and Boko Haram to the point where, if not stopped now, another holocaust might begin. George had survived the capital-H Holocaust and that was enough of that, thank you very much. The team must go to help, and Barnes absolutely would not stay behind. His arm had healed, but there was still a significant amount of psychological and emotional pain he and Steve should face together. Nobody thought it was a good idea…except the two men in possession of all the facts. The first fact was so simple any child could understand: Steve had promised he’d never leave him again. Repeatedly, the two of them on the floor, Steve running his hand through Bucky’s hair. Huddled against the refrigerator, he had promised Bucky he’d never leave him again and Steve didn’t lie.

The second fact was too complicated to explain to anybody who hadn’t lived it. If Steve died and Bucky wasn’t there to at least try to save him, there would be no more Bucky Barnes. Which might sound Romantic (with a capital ‘R’) but the truth was more tragic than fairytale ending. They were bound by painful forces of childhood devotion, well-intentioned experiments, evil aspirations and a space only they occupied. Whatever else may happen in the history of love affairs, they alone survived scientific greed, a lust for global domination, being frozen into the future and finding their way home again.

There simply wasn’t any other ending for them. They would always be the only one for each other, mated for life like swans born of steel. If Steve died, Barnes would die avenging him.

An Avenger, Barnes vowed. He came exactly as advertised.


	3. Homefront

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As the team has a moment to breathe, George and his friends take a moment to reflect.

 

********

When they arrived at the small rural hotel where they would be staying for two nights, every single one of them thought they stood on the grounds of paradise. Except for Tony, but even he wasn’t complaining. Much. Or as loudly, at least.

Tony had booked the entire top floor since it was easier to secure and everyone was free to pretend they were sleeping in their own room. Or not. Thor went into the first one and immediately tried to get Jane on the phone; she never believed he was safe when the automatic message came out because she was afraid they would lose track of him as he could use the hammer to fly. Natasha and Clint put their stuff in the same room. Nobody was quite sure what that meant. Nobody asked, either, although Bruce had a good idea. He always slept in the room closest to the outside wall. It had been years since he had transformed without meaning to, but he never gave up the habit of making sure he could jump out a window and minimize damage to the building.

Tony threw all of his stuff into the only suite on their floor. _Hey. My dime._ He decided he’d better shower before he called Pepper; he was a little bloodier than he should have been. That caused him to open three laptops to get diagnostics running on the suit, replaying mission errors, and a ten-second look at the cataclysmic shift in global gay pride that was Captain Steve Rogers. That reminded him he still had WWII stuff he needed to clear. Some things had come out with Barnes’ arm that were not necessarily good news. Still, priorities. Stop impending holocaust, then review previous one. _People are just dicks._ There. He had reviewed holocausts _._

Steve was opening the door when he heard Bucky on his right saying, “Pretty sure everybody knows we’re sharing now, huh?” Steve smiled and walked in. It was small, clean and had water and a bed. Soldiers recognize a good thing when they see it, and showers and beds become treasured luxuries PDQ. He turned around and saw Bucky wincing. “Buck, is your arm bothering you? Do we need to do a cleanout and some meds?” Bucky looked back at him. “Yeah, but don’t act like your ribs aren’t broken. I can tell by the way you shifted when I touched you. Three?”

Steve took a deep breath. “It was four, but I’m mending at a good rate.” He stood back and then put his hand up to his mouth as he laughed. He didn’t mean to, it was just so—

“You gonna tell me what’s so damn funny, punk?”

“It’s just, it’s just…” He really laughed now. “When that stupid woman asked if you were one of the good guys, I should have said ‘the best I’ve ever had.” He quit laughing as he looked at Bucky in the lamplight, showing him in terrifying shadows. To someone who didn’t know him, Barnes would look like the things that come screaming out of your nightmares. Dressed all in black, a bionic arm that could throw a car, dirty matted hair around guarded eyes streaked with black to minimize glare. He had blood and dirt on him, and the unmistakable look of a man that has killed; faced an enemy and felt no guilt leaving his bleeding body on the ground. Steve was aware he was staring. He could feel Bucky starting to become uncertain, pulling back. After nine long days living as they had in 1945, the Barnes that had survived so much trauma since then was showing his vulnerability.

Steve waited for the unspoken sign that he could come closer, then, as gently as he could, he angled Buck’s face up to his own and let their foreheads touch. “We’re from a different world than she is, Bucky. We know war. We know what it does and how it’s done. When we’re out there I _want_ you to look like the scariest son of a bitch in the world. I _want_ them to run when they see you coming.”

Barnes looked small. Steve had the most ridiculous notion that for a minute, Bucky’s body had become like Steve’s before he had met Erskine. Steve could feel his vulnerability, the delicacy of fragile body parts. He felt a loss he had never before considered; it felt _wonderful_ to wrap his arms softly around Bucky, cradling the most precious person in his world. He could plant gentle kisses into his hair and, and, cradle him. Cradle. It was the only word for it.

For the first time ever, Steve understood why Bucky had liked wrapping up the bag of bones that had been his pre-serum body.

Steve picked up his hand and took him into the bathroom. He turned on the small shower, just a spout which had a shower curtain and ran onto the tile floor. He unzipped Buck’s armored suit, very carefully removed the brace that bridged the gap between his arm and shoulder. Bucky unzipped Steve’s suit and left it on the floor. They took 30 seconds to run water over the outside of their suits—they wouldn’t be completely clean but they could do more tomorrow with time. Steve looked him in the eye and said, “Bucky, can I wash you?” Bucky nodded yes. He makes sure to look at Steve and notice what day it is, what time of day it is. Without intentionally checking, he’s never truly present.

Steve _(my Stevie_ , the briefing thoughtfully supplied) let Barnes step into the warm stream of water while he got a washcloth and shampoo/soap from his Dopp kit. Tony could travel with a set of designer bags if he wanted. Howlies travel light and assume nothing. In the back of his mind Steve sometimes categorized all the Avengers like he did in WWII—Bruce, Tony, Nat (if she needed costumes) and Thor as British dandies. Not that they actually were; Nat was tough as hell, and it wasn’t Thor’s fault he was literally, truly a God who looked like a shampoo ad. But Clint, Steve and Buck were different. They traveled like Howlies. They traveled rough and ready. Steve had a secret suspicion, never shared but privately laughed at, that Sam would be a mega-dandy given half a chance.

Steve let the water run through Buck’s hair and then got some shampoo and massaged it onto his scalp. He could see Bucky breathe more deeply, relax, feel that his touch was safe and loving. Then he used some of the suds and gently rubbed away the blood and black from his love’s face. “You know what, Bucky?” He maintained eye contact and a smile while the face he saw every morning finally became visible beneath the grime. “When I saw you running today, you looked like, like, I can’t explain it.”

“A monster who’s clearly the enemy?” The reporter had cut a little deeper than Steve had realized.

“Never. I was, um…I was proud of you. It was Brooklyn all over again. I picked a fight with 400 extremists that want to enslave 12-year-old girls and, no matter how hard I fought, how much I tried, I am never going to be you. When I saw you running hell for leather towards me, all I could see was Brooklyn, with you covering my ass until every innocent person had been saved from the bullies. You mess with me, you mess with Bucky Barnes.”

That did it. As he stepped under the water and very quickly washed up he could see Bucky’s face smile; he had gone back in time. “I think running gave me a new fragment.”

“Tell me.”

“You saw a guy shove his girl because he saw her talking to another kid from class. You told him he shouldn’t ever put his hands like that on a lady and then he came for you.”

“Ahhhh, damn. Yeah, but Maggie McDonald brought me a chocolate bar in secret for trying.”

“You got chocolate? I was the one that decked the guy and laid him out in front of the drugstore!”

“I gave you half. I just didn’t mention it was from the hand of a fair maiden we rescued.”

They stepped out of the shower. Bucky looked so different. His hair clean, his eyes not painted. Steve knew he was staring again. It was the first time they had been alone in nine days. They had bunked together two hours a night when Hulk would watch over the terrain for the next set of trucks with mounted machine guns. Nat and Clint had slept with the aid workers, Thor slept near their supplies truck, Tony in the plane, and then Bruce would sleep in the plane while Tony was keeping things under control in his suit.

Steve liked being back in Brooklyn again. A few minutes of a worse body but an easier soul. He had yet to see what evil was. His consuming preoccupations were drawing and hiding the love it happily turned out could not possibly be avoided. If they weren’t fate, then he didn’t think the word had meaning anymore. There was a way to stay there a few minutes more.

“Hey. Jerk. If you’re not doing something more important, could a hero possibly get a little first aid here?” The gamble paid off. Excellent.

“I’m sorry, punk. Did we forget to kiss an ouchie? Don’t you have USO shows or something better to do than take up space in my luxurious suite? Ohhhh. Got booted out of the Army, yeah? Well.” Bucky was wearing a threadbare towel around his waist, his hair loose around his face. He switched to a very concerned face. “Booted out of the Army for being a pansy, huh? Saw it on TV. You’re lucky there’s a real man around to protect you. I’ll just check you for medical purposes.” Steve backed up on the bed, still sitting. Bucky climbed up to join him, running his fingers gently over each exposed piece of skin. Now, he was serious. As his fingers caressed Steve’s body he was genuinely checking the damage. “Arms feel good. I’m worried about your ribs,” tracing lightly over Steve’s front. “We’ve gotta try the new app for internal stuff.” Steve lay flat on the bed, his chest clearly highlighted against the bedcovering, as Bucky took his cell phone and took a short movie of the patient’s ribcage. He pressed a few buttons, then went back to Steve.

 “Have you overused your legs trying to protect your middle?” His patient shook his head no, while the gentle examination continued. “Your head? Your neck? Your shoulders?” He felt Bucky lie down beside him, kissing the top of his head, down to his cheeks, his ear, his neck. In his ear, “tell me you’re OK.” Steve brought his hand up to push Buck’s hair back and whispered, “I’ve accidentally created a global rainbow event of epic proportions all because you once patched up my bleeding lip and I ain’t been able to shake you since. I’m in the middle of nowhere, fighting the good fight, where I can see you, and hear you, and touch you. If you tell me I can sleep in your arms for the next ten hours solid you’ll never hear me complain again. About anything. Ever.”

Barnes smiled as he said, “Now I know that’s a lie, punk.” He kissed him, then again. Couldn’t the world have waited to fall apart? They hadn’t yet gotten past the really interesting parts of kissing. It wasn’t quite so leisurely when you camped near enemy territory.

They put their clothes out on the backs of chairs then threw on some boxer shorts for convenience just in case the world started to end and they had to suit up for the next fucking apocalypse.

Bucky pulled the rubber doorstopper from his bag. For two dollars you could buy yourself whole _minutes_ while the enemy tried to figure out how to open your damn door. He had given them out to the team and expected them to be used.  Out of habit they slept facing the window, each with weapon of choice at the ready. Bucky grabbed the small tube of oil that guarded his arm against sand damage. They climbed under the sheets and turned out the lamp. Bucky heard Steve say something, but it wasn’t distinct. He was asleep before Barnes had oiled his metal arm then gotten it under the pillow and folded his flesh arm tightly around the other man.

Poor James Buchanan Barnes. It was the story of his life. Stevie had already said the most interesting thing before Bucky had a chance to jump in the fray.

 

 

********

With word the team was safely bedded for at least 24 hours, everything that had been put on hold back at SI was being done. Everyone who hadn’t been home took the 24 hours to go home, eat with their kids, remember what spouses looked like, pet their dogs. Mr. Miles declared the suite closed for the day and went to Brooklyn to see Esther, Lidia, Ollie and Ella. Oh, the relief he felt, to be back in a world with a true day and night, not pent up in a pressure chamber where everyone was anxious and nobody could do more than they could do. It reminded him very much of Korea, where there were lots of things you’d love to fix, but it simply wasn’t possible. “You can only do what you can do.” George’s general opinion of that philosophy was that it was horse hockey. The English didn’t build an Empire looking at their little gardened terraces and thinking, “Right! Better not over-reach today.”

However…Esther did point out, in a general and loving way, that not every machine gets used at the factory every day when you’re making something very important. Look at how critical George and Eduardo had been to the success of that mission when they stayed up all night creating a look for that man that shot arrows…what was his name? Clint. Yes. Esther thought it better to call him Clint than repeat Ella’s memory of the news coverage, which had revealed a rather saucy side to Ella’s personality. It turned out that while the rest of them were trying to manage the names they needed to know: Tony, Bruce, Clint, Thor, Sam, Natasha, Steve and Jimmy…Ella had seen the Avengers on the news years ago and couldn’t dislodge the names she’d coined. This meant Ella’s Avenger line up was Buns of Steel, the Incredible Bulk, Pecs Support, Arms and Hammer, Hot Wings, Surly Temple, Strappin’ America, and now Jimmy. She winked when she said she “saw no reason to relearn them at her age.” Things were relatively safe for dear Jimmy; Ella privately thought of him as the Hug Czar.

The one time she had gotten to meet the young man, he was so polite and obviously enamored with all of Ollie’s friends, she knew to the tips of the toes she couldn’t feel that Jimmy was a good man. She had heard most of the story, over the course of a few days, about how they first met Jimmy and who he truly was. She hoped the world would be gentle on Captain Rogers and Mr. Barnes. Ella had a brother that fought in World War II. Tobias, but always shortened to Tobe by the little sister who worshipped his every movement. He came back a man, not the boy who had left. That was to be expected, she knew, but to a nine year old little girl it seemed such a long trip to make in only 11 months. He came back after he lost most of his right hand. It never held him back much. Tobe got married, had kids and worked at a lumber store for most of the rest of his life. The only thing she ever saw that truly shook her was his reaction to a car backfiring across the street. The family was eating hash for dinner…then Tobe was on the floor, covering his head with his hands and screaming to “get down! Get down!” Their father finally came over and said, “Tobe, we’re all safe here. How about you and I let the girls get on with their hash and we’ll have a beer on the porch.” Ella saw now her father was a man ahead of his time. Lots of other people would have made fun of Tobe, or told him to be a man; Hitler was beaten, for crying out loud.

Tobe had been gone, oh, 13 years now? A good man. Ella loved to look for good men. She had a feeling they were most places, but you had to weed through a little foliage to get to the flowers you wanted. Her Ollie was a good man. It was so nice to have someone bring you the pills you forgot, or remember you like to watch the show about the building of the railroad. Mr. Barnes and Captain Rogers may not love women the way their generation (and the one after) insisted was the only choice, but that was the definition of progress. They loved each other, and who were they hurting? Besides, now she had a better shot at just a quick feel of that magnificent chest should the Captain turn out to be a hugger, as well.

George fell asleep, with Esther holding his hand and gently running her other hand over the hair her beau still had. The TV was on in the background and she occasionally checked the news channel to make certain the Avengers were fine. Ella had proclaimed George a good man, and Esther knew she was right. He was brave, so hardworking, and made her feel like, what had he said? It had been so darling. “Esther, you’re like the finest silk in all the world. You’re soft, gracefully strong and, oh, so lovely to look at.” Because you’re never too old to stop flirting, she had lowered her eyes then replied “would I be lovely to touch?” Her dear George. He had winked then whispered “Very, very much so. But if you’d like to lay down on my fabrics table we’ll scandalize the world when I have to ask Steve to lift you!” He also made her laugh. Nobody had made her laugh like that in years, maybe, maybe…ever.

They had a private life in the bedroom. That’s exactly what it was. Private, and they would never speak of their intimacies, not even to Lidia. Not that Lidia didn’t ask, Esther grinned to herself. Lidia was an intellectual woman of the world. She could go right on learning something else instead. Esther came to some important decisions before George awoke from his nap. He looked startled and slightly scared until Esther said, “No, darling. I’ve been checking international news, and all of the team are resting in an undisclosed location.” A deep breath. George was at ease again. That was another thing, before Esther closed her mental diary. Her George loved with a mighty heart and the Avengers weren’t merely employers. Those men and women were his family.

 


	4. The Fairfax Outfit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Although Tony Stark has an NYC-based team to give the Avengers every possible advantage in the field, at times he needs a team that can do the impossible. SHIELD could solve these problems...when they're not infiltrated by HYDRA, the most brutal organization to ever exist. What's a superhero to do?
> 
> Call the organization that doesn't exist, of course.

********

Steve and Bucky lay in deep sleep now a foot apart (damn the heat), but Tony had been too pumped to turn in immediately. He had checked in with Pepper, fixed what he thought was wrong with the suit and eaten some amazing fruit the hotel owner procured from a market in the middle of town. There would be three full meals tomorrow, Tony paying triple the actual value, but converted to USD wouldn’t buy even one meal at Daniel, a place he and Pepper had been going a lot lately. Oh, my God. The seven course, ending with ice cream flavored by a hint of absinthe? This is why man roams the earth.

“JARVIS, remind me what I’m doing in They’refuckedistan again?”

“Saving innocent lives, sir. Now may be the time to contact the Fairfax Outfit, sir. Tina has information she says is mission critical.”

“Yeah, what the hell. Patch me back to civilization, screen one.”

In a few minutes he had Tina on the screen, a 42 year old “homemaker” wearing an enormous Oscar the Grouch nightshirt saying, “Hey, Stark Raving. I get one nap a day so know my presence here is an honor you should treasure.”

“A terrorist set fire to a goat and catapulted it at me, Tina. Good. Foreplay over. What have you got?”

Tina laughed. “Shit. Poor goat. Listen, Geoff is certain you’ve got a mole. After you guys decided to go Crusading, we pulled Ben out of Russia and sent him back to work out the mole issue. Which reminds me, you’ve been billed for Ben getting married to a lonely sweetheart who worked in the records department of the Duma. Their colors were red and pink. She’s real sweet and makes good pierogis.

“Our best guess is that HYDRA or some other brigade sewn from whole-cloth assholery got inside New York Hospital, Queens. We think they’ve made tech to resemble actual surgical implants and then gotten them placed in people who have surgery there. We’ve found one in a Senate staffer who needed sinus surgery, two inside stock market trading experts who had breast reconstruction after cancer and Ben is working the angle that DaNeesha’s fallopian tube has been blocked with this same technology. They’ve had ears in your house for three years, Tony. Anything DaNeesha knows—these assholes know it, too.”

Tony slammed his hand on the table then spent a second checking his hair in the suite’s mirror.

“OK. Implications?”

“Well, she’s the eyes and ears for your girl Nat, yeah? Your route is no longer secure and there’s a big question about an area just north of the river you’ve been more or less following. So I’m sending someone extremely high up on the government food chain to help in case you run into an unexpected welcome wagon. She’s arriving tomorrow, don’t worry, you’ll all love her.

“Two, DaNeesha is Eduardo’s “best person” at his upcoming wedding, so assume all gossip happening in your new wearable tech division is now being sold to the highest builder. Finally, and listen to me carefully here—women get used to each other. You see the same women in and out of your office all hours, and it won’t take long to bond over anything you’re pissed about.”

“Meaning… fuck me sideways. Everything Pepper has ever bitched about.”

“It’s not safe to rule it out, Starkers. Put DaNeesha on immediate compassionate leave, get someone who isn’t an assjacket to handle that, Tony. I’ve heard six conversations with her, when we were looking at someone else who happened to be in SI at the time.”

“I care, why?”

“Tony, DaNeesha’s biggest ambition in life is to manage your charitable contributions and have Pepper present her with Employee of the Year. I don’t think she’s playing you; she doesn’t know. I think if she was trying she’d be shooting for a division in tech, comms, espionage—jobs that wouldn’t bore the hell out of you. She’s got a family member with Down Syndrome. Wants to make Thor’s association with that little girl a permanent relationship showing Stark supports people with intellectual disabilities.”

Tony stared at the screen for a second. “Okay. JARVIS, send Oscar the Grouchy Highway Robber more money and send Ben some Mr./Mrs. bathtowels from the cheesiest place you can think of, with love from all of the Avengers, who know how to operate without actually forming needy, complicated human attachments.”

Tina snorted. “Sure you don’t. Hashtag CaptainPride, fuckwad. See ya on the other side. Fairfax out.”

Tony slammed the table once more for good measure, then got started with the damage control. First he had JARVIS send an eyes-only transcript to Pepper. Then he fired off an email to Eduardo, telling him for security reasons wearable tech was closed until his return; stay at the tailor’s like nothing has happened, and discuss nothing with anyone, not even George. His third email was to Happy, putting together a plan that would stop the leaks until he could get back. It wasn’t perfect but it would avoid anyone suspecting a larger issue.

He popped another fig in his mouth before he said aloud “Hell—you’re sending me a what now?” After JARVIS reconnected them, Tony loudly informed Tina her surprise guest, some Pentagon doctor, would arrive escorted by a particular member of the SI staff. Things just a got a whole lot more complicated, and this man would be there so Tony could sleep with both eyes shut.

 

Thor was trying to shower in a stream that hit him chest high, so he could sleep on a bed he hoped didn’t fall apart. His battle with these radical Midgardians put Thor in mind of Loki and his quest for power at any cost. Bracing both arms against the wall in front of him, Thor let the spray stream from his hair onto his face, masking tears even he wouldn’t admit could be possible.

Natasha was washing her brunette hair, being sure to work quickly so there’d be hot water for Barton.

Barton was thinking of Rina, knowing in the fullness of time she would need to process the day’s events. In a way he couldn’t put his finger on, he was proud that somewhere out there, some day, she might tell the story to someone she cared about and they would think about him for a second and be grateful. It wasn’t that he did it for the gratitude, it was that as a few more lines showed around his eyes, it took a little more stretching to get the job done… he sometimes wondered _if I die tomorrow, did I leave anything behind?_ Today he left that act behind. Maybe he’d live on in a tiny place in Rina’s memories for killing that piece of shit who had no right to call himself a man. Clint didn’t know what was coming the next morning, which made it all the sweeter when it did.

Bruce was watching a few minutes of the news, meditating that the lives he took that day had been men who enslaved others, decapitated outsiders and forced women to be slaves to them, tortured every inch as Barnes had been and more. He let that thought be a focal point for his meditation. He had watched his friend’s brain, in real time, as he described then re-lived torture almost too unbearable to witness. Bruce remembered how the scan of Bucky’s brain had flooded with greens and blues when Steve touched him, helped him, simply said his name. Bruce didn’t tell anyone, as it was a medical situation thus it felt too clinical to share—when Bucky thought Steve had not been there, had abandoned him instead of being gently frog marched out after he kissed Barnes like their world was ending…Bucky’s brain showed heartrending grief. It was less than three seconds in all. A grief instantly lifted when he saw Steve, no matter how red and puffy Steve’s eyes were, how he reeked of vomit and gum. His meditation was supposed to focus on the good he had done that day, but had definitely taken more of a Maria turn. He would never have her here in a million years. He’d never keep his focus wondering if she was safe, how far they were from whatever roving band of marauders were looking for prey that night. On the third day of fighting, Natasha had talked him down and then fell to the ground herself, clenched into a ball she couldn’t seem to unwind. He sat next to her, asked permission to stroke her hair, then got a sniffling “yes, thank you for asking” a full ten minutes before she unfurled again. The village had been an unscheduled stop. There were only 45 people there, all afraid to stay but with no idea where to go. Clint had gotten the other refugees, as tightly packed as they were, to sit on laps and crunch in tighter to put about six more people in eight waiting vehicles. As soon as they reached the last hut Nat ran into a woman, her age, crying and rocking her little girl. The little girl was very sick, but Nat said Cap would just run behind carrying her if necess…dear God, no. They dragged the mother away but she wouldn’t come, staying with the body. She wasn’t lifting a live person.

It took Nat another ten minutes to tell Bruce she understood what had happened but she couldn’t live with what she’d seen. One of the monsters had killed the child. Nat had moved on to help the next person, the next village. But all this stuff went somewhere. It couldn’t be unseen.

Taking girls. Poor Nat was in pieces. Obviously Bruce knew why, but that’s very different from being able to help, or explain. Why do some little girls get piano lessons and birthday parties? Why do some get born into a system where they are picked apart and put back together, to be a ruthless weapon that was once, still, a little girl?

Some little girls die. Horribly. Painfully.

Neither Bruce nor Natasha would ever have a little girl. Where was the fairness in that?  Where is the fairness of some lives being flooded with red, and others floating in the calm of a serene green and blue? A serene green and blue. All little girls deserved a serene green and blue. Bruce Banner deserved a serene green and blue. Yet he was gladly giving it away. He wanted the little girls to have some. This, he could meditate on. He gives away his green and blue, so more little girls will have their next birthday parties.

He knows this will help him sleep tonight. It never occurs to him this is what makes him an essentially good human being. He wouldn’t ever believe he was what Ella would call “a good man.” Bruce, so mortified by his rage, never stopped to think that anger _does_ solve some problems.

********

All of the team were awake by 9:30; Tony had called a late breakfast and mission meeting in his suite at 10 am. The team had agreed they would stay on the top floor once arriving because a single vacation photo put on someone’s Instagram page could tell millions of people their whereabouts without even knowing they’d done it. Everybody felt a hell of a lot better. Everyone but Tony was in sweats or workout gear. Hair was clean, undereye shadows decreased. Tony waited until everyone had helped themselves from the trays of fruit, local breads with jams, olive oil and hummus, yogurt, goat cheese and more. Bruce saw Barton add things to Nat’s plate. Good. She had more than one person keeping an eye on her, no matter how much she claimed it was a wasted effort. She and Clint perched on a small loveseat, Barton throwing his hoodie on the back of the chair.

Tony clapped his hands and said “Hey boys and girls, let’s all put on our listening ears for Mr. Rogers’ neighborhood sit rep, then I get the pleasure of telling you why Mr. Rogers’ neighborhood sucks today. Cap?”

“Yeah. Anybody got injuries not healing as expected?”

Clint nodded, “My feelings are hurt. Barnes is more famous than me now.”

Barnes said “If it makes you feel any better, I still think you’re very pretty.” There was a quick groan before he continued, “My arm’s doing that grinding thing. Tony, I need your Dr. Frankenstein act again.”

Steve tried not to think about playing doctor with Bucky while he was adding, “I have four ribs either cracked or broken. I used Jarvis’ x-ray app and sent him a picture, and we estimate time for completed recovery somewhere in the middle of tonight. Unfortunately my best chances of recovery involve moving as little as possible, so today is a mandatory light day for me. Later on today, I want us to talk about the goddamn livestock catapult; that was one I never, ever saw coming. We need to rethink how we’re handling machine guns mounted to trucks, too. One possible solution I have is for Thor to work in civilian protection while Clint moves to the front and takes out these nests from the air. But that means losing someone as we need the plane manned, so there’s a lot to think about there. Finally, one of our aid workers was almost sexually assaulted yesterday, so the next country we land in that allows booze, round of shots for Barton for removing one more shit stain from our planet. That’s it.”

There was a polite round of applause, until Nat grinned and piped up with “Actually, I don’t think Clint is going to be paying for his own drinks for a while.” She asked Jarvis to put up a Facebook page created late last night. It was called “Hawkeye Saved Me” and the first status was a brief account of what had happened to Rina. The profile pic was her, smiling, holding a sign that said #HawkRocks. It had over 2,000 comments with people telling stories (surely some were made up, but, _wow_ ) recalling times they’d seen him shooting, or taking out the Chitauri, or on a mission they had done outside Dublin three years ago, or that time in Sweden. More than a few were, uh, very complimentary concerning his looks. And INCREDIBLY specific about what they liked. He put on a game face and saluted a little as the others clapped and wolf whistled. It might be kind of nice to go through later. For, well, politeness; so many people had taken the time to write.

Tony finished the date he was eating then started “Yeah, OK, Cupid. Here’s the deal: the Fairfax Outfit has confirmed a mole. We believe she was an unwitting accomplice, a device was surgically implanted without her knowledge as soon as she started with Stark. Beyond sending her flowers, we care because she’s your lifeline, Nat. DaNeesha is a walking microphone and we don’t have a clue who’s listening.”

Natasha Romanov had seen and done too damn much to bother playing the inscrutable face game. Her eyebrows shot together as she sneered, “Don’t fuck with me, Stark. Not right now.” Tony wanted to reply, but Barnes whipped his head around and said, “God damn it,” followed by a solid minute of Russian, which ended with Nat interjecting once, then starting to go pale. Her eyes didn’t leave Barnes’ face—he really did have something to tell her. The others that spoke Russian didn’t follow much. Bucky seemed to be reminding her of a particular protocol in Department X that dealt with subconscious behaviors due to physical pain and how a good agent could capitalize on these effectively.

After the solo performance, he turned to the rest of the group. He said “Sorry, it was easier that way. Here’s the gist of what you need to know. You know DaNeesha and Eduardo became fast friends, she was the first person he met at Stark who was his own age, who he could relate to. You know I wear a brace made of components of projects Eddie had done separately before he figured out how to combine them. Since he made a brace that helps support and protect my shoulder, another level of trust and access are now normal between us.”

He gathered his thoughts, then continued. “DaNeesha and I became closer friends since the brace, once I knew she also needed the technology. There’s a thing we share, about bodies... it’s not worth re-translating to all of you right now. The important thing is this: none of you know it, but DaNeesha is a talker ALL the time. I mean, she talks to herself. She can’t help it. It’s like my mission voice. I think she sings and talks as she goes through her day without knowing she’s doing it. It is entirely possible that as she gets the next set of targets from Nat she doesn’t tell a soul what Nat has written, but she mutters to herself as she does her research. We can’t rule this out. I mean it. DaNeesha was in terrible pain when she started at SI; somebody with the right psychological training could have given her tips on handling pain. She trusted it was for her own good, but they were actually behaviors they wanted her to incorporate for their own mission. I’d bet my left arm after her surgery she was given ‘guidance counselling’ that included something along the lines of ‘why don’t you _tell_ yourself how good you’re doing today? How about repeating your goals and tasks so it’s automatic? Then you can depend on yourself when you hurt because you’ve taught yourself such a healthy coping skill.’ I trust DaNeesha very much, but if she really is a radio then assume she sang or said aloud everything you asked for, Nat, as she researched.”

Tony immediately turned on screens. Every problem you have is easier to solve when it’s in front of you onscreen. “Nat, think. How many more target locations have you given her until the next communiqué?”

“Only two. She knows outside Moorad then on to al Hallah, assuming at least a few strays as we go. The peacekeepers are outside Moorad as of 3 am the day after tomorrow, then we start at dawn, ushering them through while you look for fun.”

Tony was typing as fast as he could, getting JARVIS to alert Eyes and Ears that there may be a major change in plans. The others had broken into units, discussing how a change might be thwarted. That’s why it took three knocks before somebody finally asked “who is it?” while everyone in the room pulled a weapon.

“Relax. It’s just me.”

Thor had to stand so the door could be opened, to reveal Jess standing in the hallway, asking, “Did somebody order a doctor? ’Cause I got one downstairs, but I’m gonna need some help. Thor, I think you’re my man.”

Tony said, “UH? NO? We’re not doing visible today, and hi, Jess, am I still your boss? Also, nice to see you. Thor, sit. Stay.”

Jess shrugged. “Sorry. I work out, but I can’t lift a woman in a wheelchair up three floors.”

Thor stood and looked around, then grabbed the hoodie off of Clint’s chair. “I’ll tie the sweatshirt near my face and keep the hood up. Let us do this quickly. I think minimal exposure of all our people is beneficial in every way.”


	5. Dr. Death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When the Avengers encounter a type of warfare they aren't prepared for, they have to put their faith in a woman who isn't one of their own and refuses to compromise in the field.
> 
> But to be a woman Nick Fury would fall for, you probably don't compromise on much of anything.

********

DaNeesha was definitely concerned. A first year PA came to her at her desk, saying Ms. Potts needed to speak with her immediately. Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God. It had happened. Somebody had killed Natasha and it was all her fault. It had to be. She knew it. She was walking down the hallway and it felt like she was dying. She was going to stop breathing. She could feel it, even hear it. By the time she was seated in front of Ms. Potts she already had tears in her eyes, hoping it would be a mercy killing and at least she’d have some dignity. She heard the door close behind her and tried to see through all the tears. Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.

“DaNeesha? DaNeesha? Are you feeling OK?”  
“It happened, didn’t it? Somebody killed Natasha because I—

“Wait! Wait! DaNeesha! DaNeesha! Look at me! Look at me!”

 With tremendous effort she found Ms. Potts’ eyes and focused.

“DaNeesha, Nat is fine. All of them are fine. I’ve asked you here today because I have some excellent news. Are you ready to do that? Can I give you some excellent news?”

“What? What? YES! This is good news? Oh, thank you, Lord. I mean, thank you, Ms. Potts. Yes, let’s do good news. Please, let’s do, good news for me?”

“Yes! DaNeesha, this is what I have been trying to tell you. Now, first, what I’m going to tell you is strictly confidential, so I need you to be clear on this. Are we clear this is strictly confidential?”

“Yes! Yes! Oh my Lord, please put me out of my misery!” She was hugging her abdomen in, hurting from breathing so hard.

“The work you were doing for Nat is going to shift the next three days. She needs a detailed report on a series of locations, and you’ll type up her info then leave it with me. After that, you’re going to pack your bags, and tell your whole family to do the same.”

“My family? Mom, and my sister, and my cousin out in Queens? Why?”

“Every year SI chooses one PA from the graduating class as the Best PA from that group. Congratulations, you have earned it, Miss Massey. The traditional gift for earning this honor is an all-expenses paid eight day stay at our luxury villa in France. Your mom, and your sister, even your cousin and her kids, will all be flown first class and you leave in just three days. We’re even sending a specially trained nanny so your cousin can relax while her kids are being entertained. I’m very happy for you. Now, please don’t tell any of the other PAs, we don’t want them to quit. But… I bet Eduardo and Mr. Miles would be proud.”

“Oh, oh, oh, I can’t even believe it. I can’t even believe it. I gotta call my mom. I gotta call my everybody. Don’t worry though, email me the change in reports and I’ll do it up the very best I know how, I am NOT gonna let Nat down. Thank you! Thank you, Ms. Potts, I mean it!”

DaNeesha ran out the door, hugging herself and taking little squealing breaths.

Sighing, Pepper closed the door, glad that George and Eddie would make DaNeesha feel proud. It was going to be an awful business later, when they had to explain why she was removed. Then of course, the tech would get cut out. Pepper could feel herself warming…no. This isn’t about using that poor girl. This is about how glad she was, and what a fun time she’ll have. She’d file a meaningless report on three towns over a thousand miles away from the team’s location, then get treated like a queen. Happy had suggested they could lay on the VIP package. Pepper agreed. DaNeesha should have a bodyguard anyway, so they chose one that would make her feel like she was Beyoncé on vacation. Plus…Pepper could call in a fun favor. Rihanna was always asking to come to the villa, and she could be persuaded to throw in a private show. Good could come from this.

********

The second floor was awash in celebration as Mr. Miles and Eddie couldn’t stop hugging her, and congratulating DaNeesha on all she had earned. She was crying even talking about it, and her speakerphone was on so they could hear her mom crying, too. Eddie already had all of DaNeesha’s measurements, so he told her to come back tomorrow at 4:00 for some real _ooh la la._ DaNeesha hugged both of them again, then went running back to her station so she could continue being the best PA in the business.

Eddie looked at Mr. Miles, who grinned and said “go to town, son.” Eddie would do a ruby-colored velvet evening gown, simple and cut on the bias. With her measurements already in place and tons of hours spent sewing for her, he could easily do it in six to seven hours. George gave it a little thought, then asked Mr. Jarvis what they had in silk. All of the ladies would be receiving silk shoulder wraps, compliments of a very proud G. Miles. He had Eddie put a picture of DaNeesha’s mother, sister and cousin on the TV, so he could get the right scale to do the wraps. Wraps made excellent gifts because they didn’t need to be precise.

Dear, dear DaNeesha. She had been the first to walk in their suite. Their first client. The first to explain how the basics of Stark catering were done. The first friend for Eddie. The first to receive a piece of Eddie’s technical clothing. She had brought George toast when he was ill after…the memories. DaNeesha was gentle with Barnes, and always had a story and a smile. George thought it was fantastic that she was rewarded for all she did. He was thrilled to forget the Middle East for a day and just have some fun with fabrics. They would all look elegant and tasteful.

If he was in the right frame of mind, he’d probably say they were from Georgie.

********

 A few minutes later, all eyes were on the door as Jess helped the doctor wheel into the room. A variety of boxes and bags were sitting in the hall. She was in an Army uniform, her chest festooned with honors Steve had never even seen before. Like two puppets that had their strings pulled, Rogers and Barnes jumped up in full salute. The rest had no idea who she was, so all they did was stare and wait.

The doctor nodded at both men and said “Captain, Sergeant, at ease. Nobody does that for me anymore, though, so thanks for a welcome reminder. Excuse me if I don’t get up. It’s not that I can’t, it’s that things go very badly if I do.”

Tony’s inimitable timing told him now was the opportune moment to mark his territory.

“Hi, I’m Tony Stark, you may remember me from such films as news footage showing I’ve saved thousands of lives. And who the hell are you?”

She sat forward in her chair, the sun from the window behind Tony making her translucent skin and copper-colored hair look ethereal in the beams. She cocked her head to one side and said, “My friends call me Kathleen, but neither of them are here. Everyone else calls me Dr. Death.” She said this cheerfully.

Clint finally cut in with “So, let’s skip the weird. We’re the Avengers. How can we help you?”

“You can’t. Which is fine, because other than actual mobility I don’t need your help. But I believe you will need mine. The Outfit thinks you’re walking into a trap and I’d like to stop it.”

Now she had everyone’s attention, Cap just got to the words first. “We’re moving civilians away from extremists. How do you mean there’s a trap?”

The doctor’s face was transformed, as she smiled when she saw the speaker. “My god. Is it OK to call you Steve? I have to say, I’ve always wanted to meet you. We have a lot in common.” She avoided Tony’s pointedly gawking glance at her chair and continued, “There’s a great deal you need to know in a very short amount of time. People, place, thing. But first I’ve--”

That was it. She got no further. JARVIS suddenly turned all screens to different news feeds showing footage of ISIL fighters, with black flags and guns, rounding up people and shooting those who fled. Tony turned up the sound on one and immediately got “ _happening in Moorad. Again, in breaking news, we’re receiving footage that seems to be from a drone, we don’t know who or what is controlling the drone. The image we’re getting now seems to show the women and children have been separated--_ ”

The room exploded in a flurry of activity and anger. Thor had already opened the door, Nat screaming “dammit!” as Clint tossed his food in the garbage. JARVIS is following Tony’s instructions until Barnes, attuned to small sounds, screams “STOP IT. STOP IT! NOOOOOOOOOOOOW. Listen to what she’s saying.”

The room muted again, as though Bucky had a remote control. The doctor was saying, quite calmly and distinctly, “If you go now, all of you will die. You will die an agonizing death, except you,” she nodded to Cap and Barnes, “because it will run through your metabolisms quickly. Dr. Banner, in your altered state it could take a week for you to die, with no way to ease the agony. Or, it may not affect you at all, bar watching your entire team die in a matter of seconds. I’m afraid we are too late. This is the trap I came to warn you about. I grieve for the people of Moorad, but if it’s all the same to you, I’d at least like to prevent the seven of you from the same horrific fate. Those that are not enslaved today will be used as subjects to test their latest weapon. It’s a biochemical agent that you will be powerless to stop. Your only hope is to destroy the source. There’s one good way to do that.”

Tony whirled around from the screen long enough to snarl, “Do you know the way to stop it or are you just here to talk in fortune cookies?”

The doctor looked positively beautiful as she leaned back and said “Oh, Tony. You’re going to love the part where the way we save the world involves you helping me fly.” She nodded at him in mock pity as the others retook their seats.

Dr. Death finally composed herself, and began again with authority. “Steve, the reason I said I’ve wanted to meet you is that we’re two sides of the same unspendable coin. Your body is virtually indestructible, but you are still vulnerable to these biochemical agents. My body is, what you see here, although it had some help getting to this state. But I’m completely immune to everything. And I mean everything. I first saw you at the unfreezing. I think you’ve been, what? Seven floors below the surface of the Pentagon? Don’t tell my boss I let on there’s 23 more floors. If you can find him. He hides under his desk when I go looking for him. I don’t think he appreciates I can hear him telling his secretary that he’s not in.

“Oh, and congratulations on your relationship status. I think the two of you look great together. I really dig the arm thing.”

Bucky flexed a little. He liked this weird lady with unbreakable control. Steve, polite in any circumstance and noting his boyfriend was _flirting_ with this bizarre woman, pulled together a murmured thanks before she continued her story.

“Steve, the whole point of you was physical perfection. They wanted a super soldier, and they got one. Physical perfection without equal. Me myself, I adore brown eyes, but trust me, they did just fine. The problem, as everyone with a TV or basic comic book education knows, is that you’re the only one. The sera tested in Russia almost worked but not quite. Now, in your particular case, Sgt. Barnes, you also were a fine soldier, but they required obedience of you. You were there because you were forced, not out of loyalty or love. They also didn’t have the serum exactly right, so certain things didn’t work but nonetheless we qualify you as a modified human being; a super soldier lite, if you will. Hmmm… super strength, loyalty and dominance issues. Do let me know how that works out in the bedroom, will you?” Bucky raised his eyebrows just enough to be effortlessly gorgeous and Steve was now covered in a goddamn blush so comprehensive his hair might go pink. Kathleen was definitely having fun now.

“There was a critical component neither of your sera covered, and that’s where things get interesting. It took the scientists a little while to cop on, but if they could engineer chemical and biological warfare, then surely they could engineer a soldier resistant to it. They weren’t sure how they would collect the antibodies they needed to fight biological weapons. Then…they found me.”

All of the team were looking at each other. This was nothing like what they expected. It could have been one of Tony’s elaborate pranks, but for the loss of Moorad. The doctor continued talking, none of this affecting her.

“The public school system was exhausted trying to keep up with me so Uncle Sam stepped in. I was fast-tracked through medical school and came out an MD/PhD at the age of 20. I was then placed in the military complex, where they hoped I’d engineer medicines that would help our soldiers, and in time, our citizens. The good news is, my team did it. The bad news is, stop me if you’ve heard this one, we only got one right. Something foreign was introduced into one sample. It was the contagion that did the trick. They tried dust, mold, pet hair, even lip gloss and deodorant. I had to drop one of my eyelashes into a vial. I had sex with my husband and then handled a sample. See how we really had no clue? We never reproduced the one correct factor.”

Dr. Death gathered her thoughts then continued. “On September 11, 2001, we had no idea what was coming next. My chain of command at the five-sided squirrel cage functioned as precisely as they could humanly hope for under the worst conditions seen on our own soil. The problem was, we had often debated where the vial should go, but not who would be in charge of it in the event my unit had a vote of no confidence against the Commander in Chief. And we sure as hell had no confidence whatsoever. My team took point. We took the one sample and stored it in the safest place imaginable. It’s gone, but it’s gone where nobody is looking for it.” She smirked with self-satisfaction.

Clint didn’t bother to hide his suspicion. “They injected it into you?”

“Almost, Mr. Barton. After three hours of Presidential bickering and four separate occasions where they damned near dropped the vial, I injected it into myself.” She shot a quick grin at Natasha. “Feminism is the right to think for myself, and my thought was we shouldn’t let George W. Bush drop the damned serum in the toilet because he thought it _gave_ you all these diseases. I didn’t think someone with an IQ of 180, seven different medical licenses, an officer in the Army and clearance above the President was a bad choice. Do you?”

Barton winced. “With all due respect ma’am, you look like a stiff wind will topple you.”

“It’s true, it probably could. Still on the ‘two sides of the same coin’ metaphor here. It’s irony. Do try to appreciate it.” The doctor shifted a little in her seat, then said “Incidentally, I knew I’d need to travel with at least a little proof Tina couldn’t provide. It would be remarkably dumb for all of you to take my words at face value.” She turned to Tony. “Will you please ask your AI, I have no idea how to address him or her, to put up footage of the day Captain Rogers was brought back from the Arctic?”

There was a polite yet discernible hesitance when JARVIS replied “Doctor Death, please call me JARVIS. I’m happy to be of assistance to you, but I don’t know if I have access to the footage you require, doctor.”

Tony scratched his chin for a moment. “It’s fine, J. Pull up whatever she wants.”

“JARVIS, please pull up the Pentagon’s footage of the meeting that occurred as I was running tests on the ice surrounding Captain Rogers immediately before we had signs he was coming around. You’ll find it somewhere around 03:00 that morning.” Her use of the words oh-three hundred were a tiny jolt directly into Steve’s brain. For a moment he heard an echo of the first time he ever heard Peggy give him instructions in military time. For an agonizing moment he thought he might break down crying for want of asking Peggy, just to be sure, that he was doing the right things. He was fighting his best fight. That he was trusting the right people.

The team all looked at the footage that JARVIS was forwarding at four times normal speed until Dr. Death appeared onscreen at 2:56. She was debriefing a group of men and women, mostly uniformed, when the unmistakable figure of Director Fury walked into the circle. She handed him a stack of photos and what looked like charts or files.

“Does anybody here want to argue I faked top secret footage of Nicky?”

Use of the name “Nicky” hung in the air just waiting to be challenged. “Excellent. JARVIS, would you please pull up the material the United States Department of Defense has been running on Dr. Banner? Use encrypted file under my access code, 18896-H, when the system challenges you, open audio.” JARVIS did, and she gave an audible series of passcodes and archival file information until they were looking at Bruce’s DNA sequence.

“Dr. Banner, I directed a team for over three years trying to determine if your DNA structure might protect you from the effects of chemical and biological warfare. At this moment I wish I could tell you we’re certain you’d be safe if you remained in your altered state. Sadly, we don’t know, and it’s not for lack of trying, let me tell you. It would be a great treat if you’d go over the tests with me later; perhaps you can account for variables that we didn’t think to look for.”

Bruce was equal parts outraged and intrigued. He started with, “you experimented on my blood without my knowledge or consent? That’s an atrocious--” and then cocked his head to one side and continued, “breach of ethics and, uh, my rights…which I am absolutely not going to let slide…did you think…yeah, and that sequence would fall away as it replicates…drastic Constitutional consequences…why does it look like you teased out my 5HT3…sure, because if blocked, and I…huh.” Banner still looked pissed, but he had stolen Tony’s pen and was scribbling on a napkin with his head still cocked to the side.

 

Dr. Death turned to Natasha. She smiled brightly and announced, “this is my last party trick, then we have serious business to attend to. Part of that business will be aerial reconnaissance, part of it will be strictly US military, and a good deal of it will be brute force and killing bad men. Do we all like how that sounds? Excellent. Natasha, you were born in Russia and trained in a secure facility. I don’t have access to any of your records. Will you please stand near me?”

Nat arose and stood directly in front of her, in a confrontational position that looked one step shy of sparring. The doctor turned to Jess and motioned she needed the small blue kit on the floor. He handed it to her, and she pulled out a glass slide, a box and a cotton swab. She asked Nat to swab her own inside cheek, then opened to box to reveal a microscope that folded down into four smaller pieces. She swept the swab over a glass slide, put it under a microscope, and then talked as she pushed buttons, changed eye pieces, smelled the slide, and, at one point, gingerly tasted it.

“Ms. Romanoff, the Soviets were trying to develop what we stumbled onto. You were vaccinated against everything they had at the time, plus, I’m sorry to say, a good many things they were only guessing at. You have all the usual vacs: Smallpox, diphtheria, chickenpox, the full bone and cranial series, and you’re welcome for that, by the way. I eradicated a common deadly childhood illness then found the way to prevent several common to the Eurasian population. I made every component and also got them to stabilize without any growth. One of the molecules I made glows in the dark. Fun fact.

“Pertussis, tetanus, 93 strains of influenza, every sexually transmittable disease except AIDS, and…they tried for AIDS but only wasted their time. I’d bet when you get a cold it’s gone in 30 minutes. You’re unusually resistant to sunburn. You were physically sterilized. Oh, pardon. I’m sorry if that wasn’t common knowledge. I don’t know if you’re aware, but despite your excellent health I’d say you have a high enough fibrinogen level that you should be monitored. This could be an inflammatory response to the conditions you’ve been living in, but I’d like to have a chat with you, if you’re willing, to take about the possibility that your aggressive physical regimen may be resulting in glomerulonephritis, simply meaning you have inflammation of the kidney. I’d like to suggest more testing and options for treatment upon your return to the US should you permit me the discussion.

“You have sarin gas antibodies in your system, suggesting you have been in contact with the gas but not in sufficient quantity to kill you. Now that IS interesting.” Dr. Death removed her glasses and looked Nat in the eye. “Is this something they tried to arm you against, or have you been close to the release of the gas without getting enough to kill you?”

Nat didn’t move. Anything. Only her lips to form “don’t know.” The doctor laughed. “Now I know you’re lying. Sarin isn’t something you tangle with then walk away to grab a pizza, unless…ah ha. You took a little side job. Say no more. Sisterhood, and all that crap. Well, Avengers, do we do this my way, or do I write your obituaries?”

 

Everybody turned to Steve. They could see the carnage on TV, people they should have been helping right now. Their “rock solid” intel on ISIL had gotten hundreds of people killed, while they all sat and watched a 44 year old woman in full stars and bars claim she could survive an attack that would end the Avengers. They had no reason to believe or disbelieve her, except that it seemed nobody could make this up.

Steve nodded stiffly and suggested a thirty minute breather while the doc got settled in her own room, with Jess in the room with a connecting door. Jess had seen some weird at SI, but this was really, really out there. He got the feeling he was there to guard the Avengers against the weird as much as the doctor from anything else.

She wasn’t even fully out of the room before JARVIS was getting Tina, whose first words were, “I know. She’s amazing, right?”

“No, Tina, she’s a nut job. We just lost a mission, innocent people and th--” He got cut off by Tina ramming a newspaper article against her camera.

Oh, fuck.

It appeared the doctor was in a Mexican plaza, about to be assassinated. By a once unrecognizable man Tony could now identify in his sleep as the Winter Soldier. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. They’d only bother if she was for real. The Russians didn’t thaw him for something an ordinary sniper could handle at a tenth of the cost or trouble.

“JARVIS. First fragment recovered from Barnes’ memory, screen two.” He looked. There was no doubt about it. A military woman, with copper-colored hair falling out of a bun, a bodyguard rushing to cover her as the Winter Soldier’s memory short circuited to the next fragment.

Tony thought _, I repeat: Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck._ There were four-star generals much easier to find if they wanted a military target without working for it.

“Tina, did she know? Did you know? Did you fuck with the intel about Moorad? WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO?”

Tina looked away, tears forming in her eyes and running down her round face as she shrunk away from the screen. It took about five seconds for Tony’s endless mental database to scroll to Fairfax Comma Rosebud. _Even their kids had codenames,_ Tony thought with a bitter sneer. Then his brain coughed up the rest of the Rosebud entry. Oh, Lord. One of the Outfit’s kids, a baby, had died two years ago. Baby Rosie hadn’t even had a coffin; she had a little bassinet. The entire Outfit shut down for three months, reportedly to reassess security but Tony knew better: JARVIS hacked the records of a certain St. Mary’s hospital near Rochester, Minnesota, where it appeared Tina and Washu had been voluntarily sequestered in a high-level psychiatric facility. The facility was designed to help people with severe trauma-based issues that couldn’t be discussed in a normal therapeutic environment due to top level clearance in the government.

No. Tina would never let anybody have the chance to hurt a kid. Tina didn’t do this.

“Oh, shit. Tina. I’m an asshole.”

“I agree. But, uh, the thing is, you have it backwards, just so you know. You were already on your way from the last site when Kath was over here playing, let’s discuss how tasteless this is, Cards Against Humanity. Suddenly she looked up at the TV, asked Geoff for a detailed map of where you were, then pulled out a phone I’ve never even seen before and called men to land a helicopter on our lawn. You know she and Nick Fury dated for a while, right?”

Tony squelched the briefest amount of vomit wondering if the eyepatch stayed on, then gave his best flippant “Hey! Someone for everyone. But this impending sense of the world ending is not that I did too many drugs in the 80s, right? Shit is really bad here.”

“Stark White, I wouldn’t be in your Gucci loafers for anything. By the way, confirm with Kathleen if you want corroboration on that timeline. I’m not your leak, Tony. Kathleen asked for the maps, Geoff started looking at bodies of water, and then I surmised we had to get her to you immediately because they were slowly but surely moving you towards an ambush site. It just _looked_ wrong. On Rosebud’s grave, we really only picked up on your problem after it was released ISIL had moved on from the location where Cap invited the entire planet to taste the rainbow.”

Tony nodded, they exchanged standard insulting goodbyes, with Tina reminding him as JARVIS cut the feed, “We’re here 24/7 the minute you give the order, Tony. Anytime, anywhere, let us know. Watch your asses. Fairfax out.”

 

 

 


	6. Mexico

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kathleen's objectives aren't hard to understand. It's just never clear how much she's not telling you.

********

Steve and Bucky were in their room at the end of the hall. Steve was pacing at the foot of the bed while Bucky tried to explain that he wasn’t so much _flirting_ with the doctor, per se, she was more like a friend he hadn’t met yet. He wasn’t getting anywhere with that description and Steve was getting perilously close to asking if he meant “with benefits,” a euphemism he loathed but couldn’t seem to reword. Just as Bucky wondered aloud if she had ever worked in Russia, a brisk knock came on the lower third of the door precisely where a seated adult would reach. Steve glanced at Bucky. He was seated against the headboard with his legs drawn towards his chest and his teeth gnawing on the cuticle of his right thumb. He had tried so hard to replace that habit with cigarettes; dames couldn’t respect a guy that looked like he was sucking his thumb, he said. Of course, Steve would argue his need to impress any dame had lessened considerably in the last 48 hours. Bucky nodded once and Steve opened the door.

 Kathleen wheeled in and skipped the niceties. “Well gentlemen, I think I played that about as well as I could. Was I weird enough?”

 Bucky’s chuckle was immediate and warm. “Without knowing the endgame, ma’am, I think we can still safely say yeah, that was plenty weird.” Steve, not quite ready to call a superior officer weird, motioned for her to wheel all the way in, sat himself down next to the table, then offered her some water. Dr. “Death” shook her head and started, “Steve, I’d like to begin by properly introducing myself. Colonel Kathleen Potter, National Military Command Center. I usually make a joke about Colonel Potter and the television show M*A*S*H but in your case I’ll just ask Jarvis to put it on your entertainment menu back at the Tower. It’s my understanding that Tony learned about my arrival from the Fairfax Outfit. Were you aware I was en route? As team leader protocol suggests you should have been notified. If you haven’t been briefed there are some things you’d both better hear from me first.”

 Steve acknowledged the introduction with a nod but while he faced the colonel as he asked, “both?” it was obvious Bucky was the target of the inquiry. Bucky swung his feet to the floor and sat up with more confidence than he felt. “Ma’am, permission to speak freely?”

 “Yes, Sergeant. Of course. And the offer to call me Kathleen is still on the table.”

 “Um, yeah,” Bucky nodded, “thanks, Kathleen. Please, call me Bucky, or most people in the Tower call me Barnes. I’m not, it’s, um,” he took a breath and looked her in the eye, “it’s proof I’m moving on. Ma’am. Kathleen.” When he was rewarded with an encouraging smile from the doctor his own lips relaxed slightly. “I’m sorry to ask, but have we met before?”

 "I had actually come to ask if you remembered me, Bucky.” There was a slight pause while Bucky waited to be enlightened.

All it took was one deep breath before Bucky’s heart dropped into his stomach. He closed his eyes against his knees as he concentrated on breathing. Another deep breath. Another deep breath. After that it felt cruel to offer only words but he owed her the courtesy of his remorse. Bucky looked at a joint of the wheelchair and focused all of his energy onto that one angle. It was easier than eye contact.

“Ma’am, I’m so sorry. I had a sense we knew each other but I thought…something else. Steve, I knew, I mean, I know Kathleen. The Winter Soldier knew Kathleen. She was my target in Mexico. Do you recognize her, from the plaza? She’s one of the first nightmares I have in the worst sequence of flashbacks. She’s right before I remember my arm getting attached.”

 Steve frowned and mumbled, “I was busy making sure you were okay. I don’t remember watching much output.”

 “Captain, Sergeant, I’d like to start by saying I’ve been looking for you, Bucky, for a very long time. About five weeks ago one of my colleagues, a SHIELD scientist named Jemma Simmons, told me her neighbor Lucky had treated the Winter Soldier at the Tower. Lucky wasn’t trying to break a confidence; he knew from Jemma that it was vital I speak with the Winter Soldier.” There was a slight pause while she self-corrected. “I needed to speak with Bucky. Most of what I said to your team was true. Let’s say it was the abridged version.

 “It’s true I was fast-tracked into my MD/PhD and my work for the government began immediately. However, I wasn’t only studying Dr. Banner, I was studying all of you. In my capacity as the first line of defense in case of a biological or chemical attack it was crucial to identify anybody who might have a resistance to common agents. My team is known for the lengths they will go to in order to obtain DNA from enhanced people, aliens, Norse gods, and anyone else you can think of. The true reason I attended your unfreezing was to support Nick as well as prepare additional workups on you, Steve. I didn’t believe your hibernation would alter your genetic profile yet I had to test it because that’s my job.

 “I meant it when I said Uncle Sam ‘found me.’ The part I left out is that I was already working for them. My true contribution wasn’t possible until a series of promotions and accrued vacation days created the perfect storm of ridiculously bad luck and good science.”

 

It was here that Bucky’s rounded shoulders caught Steve’s eye again. Bucky looked like a hurt animal, making himself smaller while hoping if he didn’t call attention to himself the problem would go away. Steve didn’t have to work hard to do the math. “Bucky, this looks like more than guilt from a mission. What aren’t you telling me?” He wanted so much to curl himself around his love and whisper there wasn’t a damn thing in the world Bucky could say that would make Steve love him any less. As it was, he waited patiently. Once Bucky’s words came they were flat. Their own weight crushed them on arrival.

 

“It’s a myth that the Winter Soldier was always a ghost. The longer I was out of cryo the more my own personality and history would float to the top. I was on the job in Mexico for almost a month. I think it must have been like seeing you on the bridge. I couldn’t be me, but the Soldier would…recede. Especially without handlers. In Mexico, the handlers would look for beers and women and I was left in peace to finish the mission. Her security team was good, though. By the time I found the way to her the static was too loud in my head. I knew after the mission was complete they would wipe me, and I’d lose it all again. Waiting and waiting at the end of the plaza, I got hungry and confused, and something happened.”

 From the furthest corner of his eye, Steve watched Kathleen nod in solidarity. “It won’t hurt me now, Barnes. It’s all right.”

 Bucky pushed through the memory. “I ate part of a protein pack while I waited. It was another thirty minutes before I took the shot but it went low. It was like I short circuited. The Winter Soldier never missed but Bucky did. Bucky was there and his static was way too loud for the Soldier. I watched. I sat and watched Kathleen, I watched Kathleen, she crawled. She was crawling. Her red hair looked so much like my ma. Do you remember that, that real Irish red, Stevie?”

 Steve nodded. “Yeah, Buck. Real pretty.”

 “I got mixed up. I thought the Soldier, me, I thought I shot my ma. From my perch I could see I had to go down and finish the job, she was still crawling. And I couldn’t do it. I knew if I went down there everyone would know I had shot my own family. I’d be in hell forever and never get to see ma, she thought I died in the war. She didn’t know I wasn’t gonna be there in heaven.

 “I threw up. Everything. Emptied my stomach and kept walking away. Only time I ever begged to be put back in cryo. If they wouldn’t let me die in the field I wanted to freeze to death slowly. My ma and her beautiful hair wasn’t for me anymore, no matter how you looked at it. So they froze me and I’ll bet that’s the real story of why Kathleen has been looking for me ever since.”

 Steve wasn’t a dumb man, nor an uninterested one. He finished it for Bucky. “Ma’am, did your people collect the vomit for DNA?”

 “And this is why you can sleep for 70 years and still be the best in the world at what you do, Captain. My people instantly registered that the assassin was a carrier of a form of your serum. It didn’t take much longer to connect the dots, and once we did, the real fight started. At the time, we couldn’t know everything that happened to Bucky. However, by speaking with the living Commandos and reading accounts of his captivity we surmised Zola’s work failed to live up to Erskine’s in most vital respects. The one area he surpassed you was in biochemical resistance. When I said Bucky would die the same as you would, that was an act for the rest of your team. The truth is, he might not. He would probably die, and it would hurt, but not immediately. If my theory holds, that version of the serum could increase the amount needed to constitute a lethal dose. We think he may even be able to withstand one or two agents with impunity.  Bucky, when I said I’ve been looking for you so we can talk I meant it. There are two things I really needed today. The first was to ask, have you ever tried to work in those conditions before? A fight where there was a good chance you’d face a biological attack?”

Bucky closed his eyes again, trying to rewind a movie that was missing most of its scenes.

“I’m pretty sure I haven’t. The Russians wouldn’t have known about Zola’s fluke, so they wouldn’t have risked me. Even if there was a backup I was still the most experienced and least expendable. Is that why you really came? Am I going to answer for the plaza by being sacrificed here?” He purposely avoided looking at Steve’s expression of horror.

“No, Bucky, I would have been here regardless. This is a genuinely dangerous global event and it’s my job to be here.”

Steve thought it over and realized there wasn’t a scenario where his team would have been better off without all of Dr. Death’s information. He was still uncertain what she needed from them though, and told her so. He specifically asked why it felt like nobody had all of the facts they needed to run this mission. Kathleen seemed fine with this lack of trust.

 “Oh, the other things I wouldn’t have wasted my breath asking you for. It’s a matter of national security to learn all we can about Zola’s process. We’ve never known for sure if other operatives have a form of this protection. You have no idea how hard we’ve tried to get one off of Natasha. She’s careful in all of the ways you would expect a spy to be careful and a great many you’d never think of.” Kathleen closed her eyes and leaned back. “Steve, all of the things I said in there were true, although we knew them because of the records she leaked about her own time in the Red Room. It’s not like I have a magical fucking microscope. All I needed was confirmation or denial that she was inoculated against biochemical warfare. I’ll take her saliva sample back and my people will work with it, but at first blush I’d say she’s not. The only new piece of news in there was the kidney inflammation. I suspect that’s evidence of her extreme conditioning without proper nutrition in early childhood. It _is_ serious and she should monitor it. Beyond that, all I have to say is that when I was sent here we needed a way to disguise one or two key factors and my dog and pony show in there bought some time and cover. Now we do the real work.” She sat back up and looked squarely at both men. “The situation with the hostages is real. I didn’t think it would happen so quickly, but that doesn’t change the essential reality of the mission.”

 Steve had an enormous number of things he wanted to say, but settled on, “when you said Tony would help you fly, were you talking about recon?”

Kathleen nodded. She didn’t look inclined to say more, except that Steve turned on his Disappointed Face. “Yes, Captain, there are a couple of structures near the river that I believe are possible sites to create weaponized biochemical agents. It won’t take long to determine which one, all I need to do is look at them from a height. I figured doing that under cover of darkness would be best. And I know you have a plane, but it truly is a better idea to keep it as quiet as we can. Plus, he’s such a smug asshole, who can resist making him the Best Friend in his own superhero drama?”

Bucky watched slyly as Steve coughed into his hands and turned pink. He loved it when Steve was caught being less than Captain-ly. “Baby, he is kind of an asshole. I mean, so am I, and I can’t even blame Howard.” That did it. Now the cough was pursing Steve’s lips shut in a determined not-smile. He struggled valiantly to maintain dry eyes and a steady voice. He almost succeeded with, “be that as it may, I’m not letting go of your earlier statement, Doctor. I want to know what else you’re covering up. What other key factor are you not telling me?”

She nodded. She never meant to keep it an actual secret, only to make Steve work for it. “Captain, I made the decision to come here, but of course I have a chain of command and people I answer to like anybody else. In this case, it’s a joint decision. And the other fifty percent of that decision belonged to Col. Rhodes. I know Mr. Stark is very close to the colonel, and we made the mutual decision to keep Tony unaware of anyone else’s involvement in the decision-making here. It’s tactically the most sound course of action, especially since we can be certain that ISIL is going to be using weapons that are banned by the Geneva Convention.”

Steve looked at Bucky; they got there at the same time, but Bucky turned first.

“Holy fuck, lady, are you telling me you came all the way here to talk to the guy that put you in that chair but James Rhodes couldn’t be bothered to kill off his best friend _in person_?” He was sitting up now and there was no mistaking the assertive presence of the left arm brought fully into view.

Kathleen looked utterly unrepentant. “Yes. That’s exactly what I’m saying.  To be clear, Tony isn’t special. Sparing James was my idea--I’ll kill all of you if that’s what’s required to stop an extinction-level bio-event from kicking off in the Middle East. I'm glad we'll be working together on this, gentlemen.” She then wheeled towards the door and let herself out as Bucky sat back again, laughing with the absurdity of their lives.

“Stevie,” he said, as he started again on his thumbnail, “I think I’m gonna forgive myself for shooting her in Mexico.”


	7. Flash, Thunder

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The time has come to determine where Hydra manufactures its poison.

********

The entire group was seated in Tony’s suite again, this time giving Kathleen a space to address the computer screens as well as a projected display Jarvis was shining on a smooth patch of cream-colored wall. By now everyone had absorbed the basics of how she and the Winter Soldier met in Mexico.  The video was replayed and repetition made it easier for Barnes. None of them attached inherent blame to Bucky; they all had red in their ledgers, as Nat was fond of saying. They also knew the extent to which Hydra had controlled his mind. Each of them had evaluated Barnes on his own merits and they didn’t find him wanting. As a group they agreed he was sound. That said, Bruce was not without concern. However, he thought it best to wait and watch before bringing up an issue that could be nothing more than a figment of his imagination.

Kathleen was showing the maps of the area and running her finger up a river that was only a few miles from their hotel. She had explained the different terrains and some of the challenges each might bring.

“As you see here and here,” her finger swiped right to bring up another map, “there isn’t a good place to dump the type of waste that a biochemical weapon would necessarily generate. We need more information than we could get by satellite. In a few minutes Dr. Banner and I will be going on a quick recon mission. After that I’d like to regroup in the suite to strategize for tonight.”

Bruce looked surprised. “Dr. Potter, why me?”

Kathleen glanced over while typing. “Because you speak Arabic and we could be married.”

Nobody pretended that cleared up anything.

“While I’m gone,” Kathleen said, “I need you to be thinking about everything you can do to maximize your own safety. Towards that end, Tony, I have authorized you to have top secret clearance. I know you had it anyway, but this time you have it without hacking. Congratulations. I have enabled you to open nine profiles concerning the weapons we believe Hydra will mobilize in this region. I have heard you’re a genius, so do genius things. The rest of the Avengers are your support staff until Dr. Banner and I return. Thor, may I ask you to lift my chair downstairs again?”

Thor managed to make a seated bow look regal. “Naturally, Doctor, and may I take the opportunity to say that I shall regard it my personal duty to protect you with my life for the duration of this engagement.”

Dr. Potter nodded. “I promise I won’t waste your commitment, or the sacrifices made by any of the people in this room. Now, Jess, please wheel me across the hall, then Dr. Banner and I will be leaving.”

Five minutes later, Jess wheeled the doctor out of her room. Dr. Death now had a big Ace bandage wrapped around her ankle and a silky blue scarf covering her copper hair. By covering her most noticeable feature and explaining away the wheelchair, she was virtually unremarkable when seen amongst many people. Jess and Bruce went all the way downstairs and left Clint monitoring the second floor. When the lobby was clear, Jess quietly but clearly said, “Flash.” Clint replied, “Thunder,” then Thor carried Dr. Potter down as quickly as he could. At the bottom she looked up and asked who came up with the passwords. Jess looked slightly shy and pointed his thumb at his own chest. She grinned as she remarked, “I enjoy your grasp of military history, Jess.” Bruce took a quick look and decided to ignore that Jess was clearly blushing with pride but trying not to. Thor gave Jess a hearty backslap that would be red for a week, and then the young bodyguard really couldn’t hide his pleasure at being so complimented.

Kathleen motioned for Bruce to wheel her out of the hotel. As they cleared the parking lot and headed towards the center of the small town, she told him what they needed.

“Tony’s computer AI is one of the best I’ve ever seen,” she started, “but there are some things that a computer can’t catch. One of the biggest is the glance that says someone knows they probably shouldn’t say any more but they just can’t help themselves. For that, we go to the single demographic that can move large quantities of information more quickly, more quietly, and more efficiently than an AI could possibly hope.”

Bruce nodded and smiled. “So, that’s why the market then.”

Kathleen was delighted he understood so quickly. “Yep! Especially now, because it’s before dark but after school. There should be plenty of teenagers just waiting to reveal seemingly useless knowledge.” They walked along for another minute, then Kathleen pulled out a map and Bruce glanced over her shoulder as he pushed. “Our cover is that you are Dr. Burnaby, of Simon Fraser University, here to take soil samples near the river to determine how acidity affects vegetation in this region. I’m your wife, I’m definitely not a scientist and I’m definitely not going to understand all those fancy words you like to throw around. I just want to buy beautiful textiles for our home, maybe a few as gifts. We need to be in and out in under ten minutes. I don’t want to risk getting Instagramed buying some damned rugs.”

As they reached the market stalls Bruce pushed the chair and they made small talk about the food stalls, the smells, the housewares. Eventually Kathleen nodded her head and remarked, “honey, I want to see those smaller carpets. Can we try there?” Bruce immediately saw the play. There was a bored teen girl, sitting at a small table looking at her cell phone. They entered the stall and the girl looked up. She tugged her hijab to make sure it was straight, and offered them a welcome. Bruce answered in kind, and Kathleen began to look through the stall, commenting here and there on the colors and getting advice on size and durability. As they established themselves as honest, unremarkable customers Bruce made polite conversation that naturally turned to work. Kathleen was making idle conversation about stitches, comparing colors, checking prices, then looked up with a sudden interest and broad grin on her face.

“My goodness, you know what could be such a help, we have to do Brucie’s science samples tomorrow. We don’t know this region very well. You could save us so much time if you know where we can get the right kinds of plants.” She pulled the map out of her bag. “Now, are we in the right place? Is this good?”

The young woman glanced backwards. Her father, or a man old enough to be, was silently watching from a doorway that led to the back of the sales area. There was a slight nod from him. Yes, she should volunteer some information and try to close the sale. The girl turned back around and started describing the best places to find samples. As casually as he could, Bruce muttered it would be a terrible waste of time to drive to a place where nothing was growing. Having broached that idea, now he could narrow down test sites. The girl hesitated a little, so Kathleen chimed in with, “oh, my goodness, I told you the local people know so much more about this area then that _awful_ professor we’re stuck with. Can you tell us where nothing grows? Because that's more helpful than ten of those silly professors.”

Kathleen held out the map and a pen for Bruce to circle areas as the girl described what was growing along the river. Bruce kept nodding in all the right places while taking notes and letting the girl know this was just the help he needed. Kathleen nodded at the man in the back and held up some cash for the rug she liked best. And she did actually like it, it would end up in her office provided she returned from this trip. A few minutes later the transaction was complete, the map put back in her bag and the small rug tied with twine. The sun was starting to set when Bruce and Kathleen returned to the hotel. Bruce, flush with his tiny taste of espionage, found that he forgave Kathleen for her lab’s indiscretion with his blood. As he texted Thor to help them back up he turned to his “wife” and smiled. The doctor smiled in return.

“Bruce, I’m sorry to un-wed you, but this was a genuinely pleasant marriage and I thank you for the adventure.”

Bruce’s smile fell a bit as he wondered how many shots he’d ever take at being a husband. Leaving that aside he grasped her offered hand and nodded. “The pleasure was entirely mine. Is there anything else I can do?”

Now Kathleen’s smile was positively impish. “As a matter of fact, there is something. The truth is, I’ve always been incredibly impressed by your alter ego’s ability to throw a car. It seems unlikely I should ever have the chance to do it myself. Could you ask him to throw one at these ISIL assholes just for me?”

Bruce’s startled laugh could be heard all the way up the stairs. Leaning down, he whispered, “I’ll put in a word with the Other Guy,” then took the purchase so Thor could lift Kathleen’s chair. Kathleen was delighted with Bruce’s answer. If they wanted you badly enough the Pentagon could bury you under citations and medals. You could only get a car thrown in your honor if you were legitimately someone special.

 ********

 

At that same moment, 2,035 miles away, DaNeesha was carefully considering her options. On the one hand, the table had been running very hot for her, and a gambler never likes to leave money on the table. However, there was also an invitation for drinks in the VIP lounge, an invitation, it must be noted, extended by someone who looked very much like Zac Efron. She decided to cash in. She took her winnings and placed them in a very small velvet carryall, and handed the bag to her protection detail. It was all incredibly discreet; you wouldn’t see him if you didn’t know what you were looking for, and even if you did you’d have to look twice. That Jason was invisible took no small amount of effort, when you considered that he looked like a young Taye Diggs except he was six foot three.

Having secured her money, she smoothed the front of her custom-made gown and wandered into the VIP lounge. At 2:35 am she stopped drinking champagne long enough to send a selfie to Eduardo. In six minutes she got one back, of Eddie eating a mozzarella stick while his fiancée gave DaNeesha a thumbs up. Sometime around 4:30 DaNeesha kissed Not-Zac Efron goodbye and Jason got her into the limo. As he sat in the seat behind her, he couldn’t help laugh as she produced another thousand she had won in the back room. It made just under ten thousand euros, but she had tipped the dealers and servers extravagantly.

“Of course I did, Jason. A lady always remembers who took care of her at the table.”

Jason could only sigh. He wanted to text and ask Pepper if she knew DaNeesha was a national treasure, but decided Pepper probably knew and DaNeesha would have said not to mention it.

Not because it wasn’t true. Only because she likes her privacy.

Jason shook his head again. He could hear the echo of his father watching him from above. Whomever ended up taking this particular lady home to meet momma had better have his head screwed on _right and tight_ , son.

********

 

Kathleen wheeled into the suite and saw that everyone had been busy doing what they could for Tony. His suits now had different filters and there was a test-strip they could wear to measure exposure to contagions. They almost had the strips done, although Nat’s insisted she was already dead. As Tony frowned at the offending strip Kathleen nodded to get Steve’s attention before she exited the area.

“Captain Rogers, I need you, Sgt. Barnes, and Jess in my room at 18:30, please.”

Tony looked up in consternation. “Why only them? Why are they so special?”

Kathleen tossed her reply over her shoulder as she wheeled herself out. “Because for better or for worse, usually the better, there’s nothing in the world like an American soldier, Mr. Stark.”

 


	8. 59 Seconds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What happens in the hearts of eleven different people at 4:29 pm, Greenwich Mean Time.

********

 

Thor, 6:29 pm, undisclosed location near Syria

You would like her, my love. She is devoted to science, and the pursuit of knowledge for the pleasure of having answered enquiries both monumental and meaningless. I cannot help but wonder if our healers could help her walk, yet to even suggest it may offend her. Perhaps she has no wish to walk and I am suggesting she is lesser for her difference in ability. I dearly wish you were here, love, yet I could never feel safe if you were. The women here must be fearless and even those who cannot pick up a weapon are warriors in their own way. Their suffering is so large, Jane, and I cannot see an end.

*

Kathleen, 6:29 pm, undisclosed location near Syria

Fuck, if my body hurt any more I'd shoot myself. I swear to Christ. Focus. Eyes on, tactics, mission briefing, flawless execution. It's not like any of these people are friends, although Steve is as hot as advertised. Jesus Christ. It's startling. Ugh. I miss fucking. Real fucking. Monkey sex. When you still can't get enough of him. Still. Mission focus. Acceptable loss of life and bring back the samples. Make the sausage.

 *

Eduardo, 11:29 am, Manhattan

Dammit, the line still sits crooked. It’s like I bunched up the threads too tight, but it’s elastic. Maybe Dad can, dad, calling him dad, like, it’s still weird, but it’s great weird. Great weird. Mags calls him dad, too, and he smiles every time, still, I wonder how long until somebody calls me dad, but, SHIT, stop the machine, stop stop stop stop, AARRRRRG. Dad is gonna laugh his ass off. I can’t even see what I did here, this sewing machine has a mind of its own, actually, “Jarv? Is there any chance Tony decided to upgrade my diva, Elaine Stitch? Because a Pfaff sewing machine definitely shouldn’t smoke, Jarv, like, that’s not a thing.”

 *

Jess, 6:29 pm, undisclosed location near Syria

It’s not a zero-sum game. It’s not, you know that. Relationship goals, right? It can’t be just anybody. It’s gotta be right, and right is not gonna come along without some help, but that’s not your fault. You are being you. This is you. This is you. Take stock. Mission is going well, boss seems pleased, other scary Army boss seems pleased, they know you. The team knows you, you don’t have to prove, don’t have to front, head in the game. Head IN the game. Barnes and Cap, relationship goals, but co-workers. Equals. Chill. Not a zero-sum game. We can all do good, we can all get praise, all get the girl, just not at the same time. Chill. Not a zero-sum game.

 *

DaNeesha, 5:29 pm in the Stark Industries French villa

DAMN. Just, DAMN. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. Have a little smoothie, laugh it up, that’s right, I can do poolside glamour. I can do French chic. I can do--DAMN he’s so hot. Pepper is trying to kill me. Bodyguards can’t be that fine, they gonna get noticed and people are gonna die. I’m gonna die. Jason could save me, but he's the one that's too damn good looking. HEY. You go look at your own damn bodyguard, I got you here, girl, you gonna steal your cousin’s bodyguard? You PUT those titties back in that top, all out there. Swingin’ that business around, what are you thinkin'? Go get your own guard, freeloader—aaaaahhhh. ahhhhhhhhHHHHHH. No. No. No. Oh, no it hurts. It hurts. Please stop stop stop stop stop stop stop…

“No, I’m fine. I’m fine, thanks. I have a stitch in my side, I guess. Lord, that does hurt though.”

 *

Steve, 6:29 pm, undisclosed location near Syria

No matter what we’re going to be endangering civilians. We can’t possibly move an entire town without trucks, and we can’t move in trucks without clearance from Potter. It’s wrong. Why weren’t we told? Who knew? Did someone know there were biochemical weapons in play? When? It couldn’t be Tony. Tony isn’t that man. He wasn’t ever that man, not really. Rhodes? Potter? This Fairfax group, we still don’t know anything about them or what they had to say about Bucky. Who is holding back? This is so dangerous for Bucky. He shouldn’t be here. He’s not ready. WE weren’t ready. Why can’t we have the time, after all of it? After everything, we need the time, God. Oh, God, we missed so much. So much, and yet we’re here because I can’t stop. I shouldn’t stop. It’s not right to stop. He knows that. Right? I shouldn't stop. And I can't leave him. We can't. We can't stop.

 *

Mr. Miles 11:29 am, Brooklyn

Hmm. It’s quite nice. But flashy. Should it be? She doesn’t seem flashy, but maybe it would be nice? Or this one? Is this one tacky? Or fun? Well, good God, man, this isn’t the Spanish Inquisition. It’s a simple question. You’re not a young buck, George, twilight approaches. She’s wonderful and she laughs at you and with you and just grow a backbone, you ninny. It’s a good job you went native, the Queen would hardly have you, not in this state, old man. Good heavens. Starch the upper lip, pick a ring, and get _on with it_ , George.

 *

Clint, 6:29 pm, undisclosed location near Syria

My fault.

No necklace, no problem, I said I’d take what you could give.

Had to be my fault.

My fault, just tell me what.

Of course I’ll sleep next to you. Of course I’ll watch over you.

I quit being me the minute I saw you. I was us.

Now I’m us, but without you. So there’s no me. And it’s my fault.

It always is.

*

Bruce, 6:29 pm, undisclosed location near Syria

It was fun! No, I liked it. I liked being able to use just, you know, me, just my regular body. It was good, and Kathleen is very good company. I think we can learn a great deal if we can compare notes. I think we should do a data swap and then see if we can recreate results, then go from there, maybe look at RNA subsets? It was a thought I had. You'd like her, Maria, maybe someday we could all go on whatever you call a double date, when everyone going is over 35 years of age. I don't even know what people would call that. Dinner with friends, I guess. I'm a little new at this.

*

Pepper 10:29 am, Chicago airspace

Yes, I'm calling from the jet, it went fine, we're set for the fundraiser. Are you ready for notes? Fine, please call legal and tell them we need to make certain that we have the right to cross into neutral territory should things near Syria go pear shaped and tell Happy I need to arrange for Ms. Massey’s homecoming. I don’t like the font on the gala invitations so ask Diana to please choose something more legible; Private note to Tony, why is Dum-E trying to talk to me via JARVIS? And...why aren’t you here? Dammit. I can’t cry, I can’t cry, wearing the Dior foundation, doesn’t blend well after tears and I didn’t prime my liner today because I cried through yoga _because I’m scared, Tony,_ these people want to kill you with something you can’t even see. Breathe. Chicken salad for lunch for me please, thank you, I need security in my office at half past two for a briefing and please tell Eyes and Ears I have concerns about what we’re running on the monitors, let’s schedule a sit down this afternoon, thank you, why am I alone right now, Tony? Please be safe. Please. I mean it. I mean it for real, are you listening to me? Oh my God, you don't even listen to me _in my daydreams, Tony._

*

Bucky, 6:29 pm, undisclosed location near Syria

Jesus, punk. Look at you. Pacing. You move so much now, did you notice? You move and you’re so damn gorgeous. You were always gorgeous.

I’m not always here.

Heard Dugan yesterday. Just for a minute. On the crapper.

I think Kathleen might really be Dr. Death. If she takes me, don’t you dare follow me, punk. Don’t you do it.

Want to be in my closet. Looking up. Alone. But then with you. Alone with you.

There’s an empty place in me. The cold got in there and hollowed it out. I don’t know what goes there anymore. Do you have it? Did the ice hollow out a place in you? I wish I could crawl inside of you. That sounds sick, I think. But it’s true.

Morita says hi. He doesn’t trust Kathleen. I didn’t kill her. Maybe she’s mad. At least she’s not my ma.

I wish I could crawl inside you, punk. Out here is too much.

Maybe they froze all my love inside of me and the longer I’m out the more it will thaw. I’m sorry I don’t give you any fresh love. It’s there, but I had so much already, Stevie. I wish you’d stand still, so I could give it to you. Then you’ll always have it. Maybe I didn’t tell you, but.

I’m not always here.


	9. If You Got 'Em

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A cigarette break while standing sentry brings our soldiers a hard-earned moment of peace.

********

At 18:30 the soldiers and Tony assembled in his suite. Tony sat down and brought up maps while Steve cleared the tiny couch of mechanical debris so the others could sit.

“Okay,” Kathleen took a deep breath and pointed at a screen, “gentlemen, here’s where we’re going and this is what we’re doing.”

Barnes looked up at the screen, memorized the map, then turned to his right.

“Jess, you served?” he asked, not wanting to interrupt the actual proceedings.

“Sir, yes sir, Marine Corporal Jess Byron reporting,” he whispered with a small nod. "Right out of high school. I've changed a lot since then. Been a bodyguard about seven years now for Stark. I love it. I've been watching out for your friend Mr. Miles for a stretch. He's a hoot."

Barnes turned down the corners of his mouth but he was nodding with approval. “Fair enough, Corporal Byron.” He turned back to the screen.

Steve and Kathleen made a few notes about the potential weapons sites and Tony explained how they’d be flying to get the images they’d need. It wasn’t difficult to lay out and nobody had questions. Steve would be helping Tony check his suit for mission readiness while opening up the armory would be Barnes’ job.

At 18:45 mission watches were formally coordinated and personnel left briefing to gear up before heading out. Truth be told, there weren’t actually watches to coordinate. Tony had all of their gear outfitted to the teeth with Global Satellite Positioning and other doodads Steve got tired of hearing about. Checking the mission watch was more a reminder to check the other things Steve carried in his suit. There was a small pocket that insulated and protected his WWII compass, the lensatic one that still carried Peg’s photo.  He took good-natured guff about the photo but nobody could argue Cap had questionable taste. He wouldn’t want to have the compass without the photo, if he was honest. With it was a paratrooper’s map sack, handy for smaller things that must be kept dry. Just behind that was the handkerchief Mr. Miles had sewn for Steve, the silvery cloth with Bucky’s red star sewn in the corner. Steve believed Bucky carried his hankie as well, but had never seen it. That was as it should be, since Bucky would never tell anyone he would not be taken alive by Hydra no matter what the cost nor benefit. His handkerchief, with Steve’s shield, was folded around a triple-strength cyanide capsule hidden between two Kevlar panels covering his heart.

Tony and Bruce stood in the hall, looking at relief maps of the river and discussing the information they had gleaned from their source. Bruce had used soil sampling data from a 2011 UN-backed soil enrichment program to guess where the factory making WMDs or biowarfare might be located. Tony was making sure he could securely grasp the doctor without compromising video and audio quality. JARVIS was instructed to bypass his usual parameters, set to relay all info back to the Tower in New York. In a private discussion with the doctor, Tony agreed that keeping things as low-tech as they could be made would prove the most secure. Once they had a target and were ready to roll tomorrow, JARVIS would be brought back online globally.  E&E, as well as the governments involved in the UN-sanctioned Avengers mission, would see the battle itself but not the recon done tonight.

Barnes was almost to the room he shared with Steve before he realized that he didn’t have proper gear. He’d need a different shirt. When they suited up to fight, a black tactical vest covered his organs and was deliberately cut to show off the Weapon. Bucky had come a long way from the first moments in the Tower when he regarded the arm as _only_ a Weapon, one he was forced to employ against his own judgement, even against his own humanity. Now, every time he hurt an ISIL insurgent—a man who kidnapped children or stabbed innocent mothers, Bucky _chose_ to wield the arm. It didn’t have to be Hydra’s Fist. Frankly, he didn’t even need for it to be Bucky’s Fist. As far as he was concerned, his metal arm was no different than his M1941 Johnson sniper rifle, his Colt .45 sidearm, or even his fucking canteen. His life, all he had and all he owned, had been property of the US Army. He was never given formal discharge and as such his commanding officer was the only person allowed to aim the Weapon. Sometimes it seemed obvious to Bucky his autonomy died the day he killed Jerzy Szymański. Everything that happened after that, he must have been weak, or a defective and faulty soldier, to let Hydra do the things they did. It was certainly a moral failure on his part, and although he could look Kathleen in the eye and say he was a better man now…better didn’t mean good.

Besides, Bucky reasoned, everybody knows that there’s only room for one in the spotlight. Let it shine on Steve. Steve deserved it, and (though he denied it), he was at his best there. Bucky worked best laying with his rifle deep in the shadows. His good was judged by whom he served. He didn’t have to be a good man, he thought, as long as a great man loved him.

Lost in this thought, his feet brought him to the hall door of Jess’s room. Bucky was still running a list of tactical clothing in his head when he pushed open the door muttering, “Jess, I gotta borrow a black long-sleeved shirt that can go around my arm--oh, fucking HELL.”

Through the door Bucky could see Jess was struggling with an undershirt that doubled as a binder.

Barnes slammed the door. He walked quickly down the hall then opened his door and reported to Steve.

“Jess has tits.”

Steve looked like a fawn facing a Humvee.

“Ah, yeah. Okay, Buck, yeah. Okay. This is one of those times being out of the ice for a few years has made a big difference.” Steve tried to give an explanation that was fair to Jess and sensitive to the issues at hand, while tacitly acknowledging that he didn’t know much about transpersons except to hopefully not be rude. Barnes listened to all of this with a schooled expression and realized none of this got him anywhere in regards to having a shirt to wear.

“Steve, bottom line: can we share clothing?”

“Bucky, I cannot possibly get a read on a supply SNAFU with the information at hand. You’ll have to work it out.”

Barnes took a deep breath and walked down the hall. This time he knocked on Jess’s door. Jess answered.

“Jess, can I borrow a black shirt?”

“Uh, yeah. Listen, I don’t know how this all works with you being, older, but, if this is too weird for you I need to know right now and we’ll adjust our plans accordingly. I’m still a soldier, still a good Marine and still a smart person and I don’t wanna go out there with someone who isn’t gonna have my back if this is too weird. So. Is it weird?”

Bucky leaned against the door jamb then looked at him.

“I was born in Brooklyn after the War to end all Wars, sent to fight in the war after that. I survived falling off a train then got brainwashed into wielding a Soviet robotic arm against the West. At 99 years of age I have begun a gay love affair with my former commanding officer, one-time Brooklynite back alley punk but now a supersoldier frozen in time, thawed at the last possible moment to triumph over space aliens. I don’t give a shit about weird if you don’t, Marine. Wanna go pick out some guns?”

Jess threw a shirt in his face and pushed him out the door by slapping his shoulder.

“Oooh-rah, Sergeant,” Jess shouted as they turned towards the stairs. “Ooh-fuckin’-rah.”

 

********

 

 

It took forty minutes to drive west towards the river. Tony turned off the AC in the Humvee as they pulled into position on the near bank. It was barren. No buildings for miles around and nothing but scrub beneath the wheels. Kathleen got out, surveyed the ground, and after a discreet sniff motioned for the men to follow. None of them would admit it, but each man was holding his breath just slightly until she gave the all clear.

“I don’t like you needing to fly higher than 5,000 feet, Tony,” Cap said as he walked up the crest of the riverbank.

Kathleen remarked, “Nobody does, but I need a birds’- eye view.” She leaned against the car, her wheelchair an unnecessary burden out here. Tony pulled out the Mark XXI he had been tinkering with and quickly suited up. He had brought seven suits for their UN sanctioned mission, the XXI was the clear choice for this trip. Tony liked knowing that if shit got real on the ground, he could blast the two of them 40,000 feet up and suffer no ill effects. In fact, it only took three hours (and scavenging a VII he brought for parts) to create an external extension for Dr. Potter. Should they need to suddenly shoot up beyond 14,000 feet, Kathleen would have an oxygen mask and a temperature-constant body covering slipped over her head using a mechanism JARVIS could deploy automatically. It wouldn’t stand up to severe conditions for longer than one hour, but one hour is a lot of time when you have three of the greatest scientific and engineering minds of the century working as a team.

Kathleen made sure her clothing was secure and her hair was pulled back. Jess took out the extension Tony had built. It slipped over the doctor’s shoulders like a backpack. Jess brought the thin rubber tubing around to the front and they got the cannula situated into Kathleen’s nose. In the highly unlikely event that Tony should die in the suit, JARVIS would automatically turn the XXI into a rudimentary landing craft set to fly itself to the coordinates for the hotel 15 miles away. The extra oxygen ensured that Kathleen didn’t need the suit’s filter functions to breathe, thereby allowing the suit to use primary airflow rerouted through the thrusters to cushion a landing.

Both were suited up and ready to go. Tony nodded at Kathleen, then grabbed her in a sort of side hug. Her body was locked onto the right of his suit. Tony engaged with thrusters, flying in a circle so they could make sure everything worked. Kathleen gave some jaunty thumbs up and they were off. They were set to film up to four suspicious buildings near the river, about a twenty-minute flight.

The three soldiers were left guarding the SUV. Jess climbed up on the top, watching over the river and looking for signs of life. The super soldiers leaned on the hood and looked the other way across the miles of scrub and packed dirt. In a matter of seconds, it was so dark and quiet nobody could surprise them within a few hundred yards. Jess continued to peer quietly into the darkness but he could hear Cap muttering in a low, constant whisper, only letting up when Barnes guffawed at some shared memory. There was a beat, as both men listened for a change in the atmosphere, then Steve moved on to the next comment. Jess realized both men came of age when you heard the enemy before seeing them. Stopping to hear the enemy might be a smart tactic in a hedgerow in France, but Jess knew the Middle East plays different games. The wind could conceal sounds and sand could distort gun reports.

Neither Steve nor Bucky could know it, but Jess would have staked his life that they had everything he had ever wanted. The ease of being a man in a man’s body, born in a time when being a man had very simple expectations and limits. The men were meant to train, then fight with honor against formidable evil. Then you came home, got married and had a kid, a mortgage, and a car in the garage. To Jess, it sounded fucking _great_.

Jess isn’t stupid, he realizes those very limits are why Steve is telling a story right now that would never see the light of day in New York. Captain America, rolemodel, took the night off and Steve Rogers, professional soldier, came out to kick ass and take names. Logically he understands they could never have been like this in their war. _That’s another thing that you don’t see much in New York,_ Jess ruminated. He hasn’t seen Barnes enough to really know, but Cap had never even once registered on Jess’s gaydar, and his gaydar worked just fine. It wasn’t the clothing (black tactical is a uniform look for a reason), it wasn’t the time, and it sure as hell wasn’t the place. What was it? The expression on Rogers’ face? The voice he was using? Something subtle, something just under the skin. In this moment, there is no doubt that Steve has never loved anybody like he loves Barnes; everybody knows about Peggy and Jess is sure that being bisexual is just as real as being trans…but not even her. Whatever it’s made of, there is an energy emanating from Steve Rogers’ center and only Bucky Barnes stands inside that force field. He imagines it was always this way. Being gay in the 30’s probably sucked shit, but Steve had a force field, so that was that.

The Olds have told tales out of school; Jess knows a great deal about the relationship issues caused by the PTSD both men are battling. Jess sees that and everything it means. To him it doesn’t matter though. He’d give anything to have the circumstances reversed. He covets moving with ease and knowing you’re the best. Expecting respect, love, and commitment because it’s the truth of your life. Christ, he could bury himself right here with wanting that so DAMNED much. In the end, he tries to cheer himself up with the thought that as long as he’s true to himself, and true to anyone he may date, eventually he’ll get the girl. Eventually he’ll have a force field, too. Right now, Iron Man has entrusted him to sit on this Humvee and Sgt. Bucky Barnes of the 107th is cradling the M27 Jess had selected for him because it doesn’t jam like the M249 (“Nice call, kid.”), so maybe he should grab a smoke, shut off his rambling brain, and see if Captain America really did step out for the evening. He pulled out the pack and his lighter.

 

“Son, for your sake I hope you didn’t just light up in front of a national icon such as myself, threatening my delicate constitution. You might need to hand that over so I can inspect it.”

Jess, to his credit, laughed low and long at the tacit implication. “Yessir, captain. If you need to try it I can tell everyone it was Barnes’ fault.”

“You’re a good man, soldier.” Steve took a single drag of the proffered cigarette, and didn’t cough as much as he should have, if he were trying it for the first time. And Bucky definitely noticed it was not his first time.

“What the hell, Steve? I smoked on the fire escape every day since I was 13—“

“Nine,” Steve said and passed it to Barnes.

“Okay, eleven,” Barnes replied, waving the cigarette, “and never ONCE did I say you could try one. You wanna tell me why you know what to do with one of these, punk?”

Steve looked chagrined. “It’s something soldiers do,” was all he had to say.

Jess took back the smoke and nodded his head. “That’s true even now, but I think it’s different from the old, uh, I mean, your first war.”

Barnes cocked his head, then shook it. “I’m not sayin’ my memory’s any great shakes, but I don’t know if I could tell him what has changed. Can you?”

Jess shook his head. “Not really. I mean, sure, soldiers smoke, but I don't know if it's the same. I guess people care about cancer, you should be healthy if you want to get shot by the Taliban. As long as you can ruck and run it’s fine. But I think a lot of the huge jarheads, the guys who are third, fourth generation and all that, they grew up hearing how grandpappy bought out an entire German POW camp with six Lucky Strikes and a pack of playing cards. They heard cigarettes were currency, and they aren’t as much now.“

“Yeah,” Barnes took a drag, “that’s bullshit. Nobody’d give you Lucky Strikes for a Nazi, the Luckys were worth something, goddammit!” He passed it to Steve again, and watched with a feral grin as Steve took a drag. “I can’t believe it. I woulda tanned your hide, Stevie. Smoking. What were you thinking?”

Steve handed the butt up back and looked back across the river. “James Buchanan Barnes, if you were so worried about my stellar reputation as a leader of men, why did you get me drunk and try to seduce me?”

Jess snickered as Bucky took a drag. “When did I do that, exactly?”

“On Halloween, jerk. We were both drunker than skunks and you were looking to impugn my virtue, Sergeant. Don’t lie now. Jess is Marine. Marines hate lies.”

Jess snorted. “I just wanna know how much it takes to get one of you drunk.”

Bucky slapped him on the back and said, “Asgardian mead, straight down his gullet, for much of the Halloween party. God, that was a good night. That was the best night.”

Jess clapped his hands together. “Sure, sure, I was there! Eddie and I toasted his engagement once or twice, in a manner befitting his achievement and the day, you understand.”

Steve snorted. “Yeah. Once or twice a minute. I can’t believe Eduardo could walk at the end of that party. He’s not a very large man. There wasn’t a lot of real estate to soak up the amount of tequila being consumed in his honor. At least I remained dignified.”

Jess and Barnes looked at each other and immediately howled. Both turned on Steve, pointing at him with derision and glee. “You,” Bucky stammered, “who was wind-milling around in cowboy fringe? The fringiest…fucking…FRINGE, that ugly fringe.  Jess, as I stand here before you, today, a changed man…let me tell you that if you can love someone in cowboy fringe then you have truly met the one you should spend the rest of your life with.” Bucky took the last drag on the cigarette, then stomped out the butt with his heel and carefully scattered all traces of the smoke. He couldn’t bear that soft look Steve had at the moment, hearing Bucky say, so easily, stuff about loving him or staying. Bucky didn’t know where that came from. It was probably the cigarette. Soldiers talk shit when they sit and smoke. Nobody listened to Dugan flap his gums every time he lit up, did they? Of course not. Smoking is for passing the time and wondering how long it will be before the enemy tries to shoot you again. All it was.

Steve looked into the night sky. “Incoming,” he said softly. In a few seconds Tony was on the ground, Kathleen safely dropped from her perch.  She looked excited and windswept. “I’m sure we’ve got it, gentlemen. The second site. I’ll show you back at the hotel, we can upload there.”

 


	10. The Man With the Plan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Avengers are ready for a final confrontation in this UN-backed tour of duty in the Middle East. What does the target look like?

********

The five of them sat in the SUV, approaching the outskirts of town and happy about it. Cap had wondered aloud what they would need back at base, which prompted Tony to list supplies, which prompted Bucky to get bored, and then a single yawn was all it took to topple the professional veneer they had tried so hard to maintain.

“Jesus, Buck,” Cap was drawling, “I’m so sorry our nighttime raid into enemy territory wasn’t exciting enough for you. Do you want Jess to shoot at you, wake you up a bit?”

“No-can-do, Cap, that’s my shirt and I need it back,” Jess nodded as he looked out the window, scanning for unfriendlies because he was not, in fact, a hundred years old and thus totally (seemingly?) relaxed out here.

“You wearing another man’s clothes, Bucky?” Cap turned on a Seriously Disappointed Hero Boyfriend Face.

Bucky looked around, looked down, and shrugged his shoulders as he flashed a thousand-watt grin. “I’m so sorry, folks, I’m prone to memory loss on account of being the world’s longest serving P.O.W. Did you say something about a shirt? Who are you? _Who am I_?” He leaned into Jess, eyes guileless and appealingly huge. “What have I done? Where am I?” His voice drops to a whisper, “and any chance the built blond is single?”

Everything dissolved into a groaning laugh, until Kathleen asked, “does this mean we’re no longer in the company of the feared Winter Soldier?”

“Oh, no, ma’am,” Bucky drawled. “I don’t know who he is, but he sounds terribly ferocious. And dangerous. Ferocious, and dangerous, and exceedingly, devilishly handsome.”

“Well, if you do run into him,” she starts, “tell him I expect to receive his full attention this time, soldier, tell him I won’t put up with any second-rate _paralysis crap_ this time.”

Everybody howls as Kathleen turns from the passenger seat and shakes a bony finger in Bucky’s general direction. This general feeling prevails until they reach the outside of the hotel, when Jess casually remarks, “I never clocked Barton smokes, too.”

“Oh, shit,” Bucky and Tony say in unison, as they drive right past Clint, face hidden in a hoodie with a lit cigarette, and act like they were headed to the next block all along. Tony turns left and heads to the hotel through the back alley as Cap pulls out his cell.

“That doesn’t make me feel any better, Sarge,” Jess grumbles.

“Nah,” Tony says, “cigarette and hoodie just means we’ve missed a verbal transmission. Cap?”

Steve looks down to the text on his phone.

“Nah, it’s cool,” Steve says as he scans down the transmission. “We turned Jarvis down out in the desert, remember? Just says they couldn’t raise us through Jarvis, be advised wedding party in lobby, ETD unclear, too crowded for safe ex-fil on Colonel Potter.”

Tony parks the SUV in the back of the hotel, in the corner of the lot. Looking as though they want to hide it will be too obvious. Putting it in a corner, where it could belong to one of several rooms, is the better bet. He sees Thor’s face behind the third-floor window to Nat and Clint’s room. Tony suits back up as Kathleen steps out and leans against the hood, trying not to betray she cannot walk the distance across the lot towards their rooms.

Tony walks over, puts out his arms as though he wanted to hug Kathleen, and asks, “well, dear?”

“Oh, yes, please, Mr. Stark.” Tony gently picks her up bridal-style, and in a few seconds, they have floated up to the window where Thor reaches out and pulls the doctor in. He lays her reverently on the bed.

“My goodness,” Kathleen smiles, “three brave soldiers, an engineering legend, and brought into bed by an actual god of Asgard. I may swoon!” She playfully rolls her eyes at Bruce, who is standing in the corner of the room, watching this unfold with something of an ironic grin.

Thor smiles at her, standing at the window once again as Tony prepares to give the others a little lift so they can get pulled through the window quietly. The “quietly” part is already jeopardized as Steve and Bucky whine, “we’re too tiiiiiiireed!” and beg Tony to lift them bridal-style as well. Stark hauls each man up under the armpits, not missing the chance to remind Steve muscles don’t fly you up to third story windows.

Steve barely has time to scramble through the window frame before Jess is now visible hovering outside the window, laughing as he taunts Tony, “ _watch it_ under the pits, Stark. Hands off my tits.”

At the mention of tits, Tony’s eyes bulge wildly, his hands flail comically and his eyebrows go to war with his hairline. “TITS?? Nobody said anything about tits! No tits! Tell Pepper, I specifically said, ‘no tits! No tits!!’” In this perfect moment as Jess is hooting, Kathleen and Nat burst into giggles, and Steve and Bucky guffaw like teenagers, Clint arrives with his cell phone still out and discreetly takes a single snap of Tony’s face. Jess tries to clamber in but his tac pants are now caught on the window latch; a desperate Tony is shoving Jess’s ass over the sill while trying not to look at anyone, the entire enterprise buried in shouts of laughter.

In the five minutes it takes all of his team to file into his suite, to examine the new intel that should be displayed by JARVIS, Tony realizes this is perilously close to the best he will ever have, the best he will ever feel. If…

As he walks into the crowded space, sounds of his hand-picked team, this _family_ , bouncing off the walls, he realizes JARVIS has betrayed him by posting Clint’s perfectly captured image six feet high on every wall. Then he hears the only sound that can complete this night.

“Tony? TONY?! What is going on?” the light of his life is asking. “Why am I teleconferencing with a six- foot tall picture of your head?”

Pepper. JARVIS got Pep here.

Now.

Now it was perfect.

 

********

George looks up from the schedule his son has just handed him. "Eddie, why has Pepper Potts requested a 5:00 meeting with me this evening?"

"Uh, dad, you better, just, call your girlfriend. It's a thing."

George decides he couldn't possibly keep Ms. Potts waiting a single second past 5:00, so he makes a mental note to call Esther and then strides along to Pepper's office. As he arrives, she is just gracefully sitting down at the entertaining sofas, with cups of tea and lemon-ginger cake on the low table at the ready for both of them. George takes a moment to appreciate the small beauties of his life, a proper cup of tea prepared with care by such an accomplished employer tops the list.

"George, is there any chance you have read the New York Times today?"

George knows he's missed something. "I'm so sorry, I haven't had the time yet."

Pepper looked over the rim of her delicate cup with a small smile. "I thought as much. How about we share my copy while we enjoy our tea? I'll let you read the letter first, if you promise to introduce me to Lidia someday." Pepper takes a dainty sip, then pushes the first section of the paper across the coffee table. _Lidia?_ George only need open the front section to page five. It has been purchased outright for the purpose of featuring a single letter. He skims downwards to the signature line. Oh. Oh, ho ho. Oh, my. Well, he has never shied away from standing firm on his principles and he wouldn't ask a friend to balk either. Or, all of his friends, as it were.

Pepper smiles. "See anything worth reading, George?"

"Well, let us see," George replies.

 

_An open letter to those protesting the relationship between Capt. Steve  G. Rogers and Sgt. James Buchanan Barnes_

_I am writing this letter today after witnessing people shout shocking and hateful things concerning the courageous and beautiful declaration of love as made by Captain Steven G. Rogers, to Sgt. James Barnes, Avengers currently seconded to the United Nations Peacekeeping Task Force. I feel privileged to have seen these young men fall in love in the 21st century. None of you can imagine how hard it has been for Sgt. James "Bucky" Barnes to come back into American society. It was my good fortune, and the fortune of my friends, that we met dear Jimmy as he was first trying to heal and become a productive member of our society after his horrible tenure as the longest serving American POW. You can't imagine a boy more traumatized or more confused. But he did everything in his power to be a good neighbor and friend to us. Jimmy had every reason to take without giving but he never took advantage that way. Every morsel of food, every scrap of kindness, he repaid and then some. He stopped our landlord from taking advantage of us in our advanced years. He helped us stay warm, dry, he even helped us with home repairs! Now you tell me, who is the bad American here? Is it poor Jimmy, who could be a cold and unfeeling shell of a man but instead makes lovely lemon bars and enjoys playing with our cat, Eleanor? Is there something so evil and terrible that he steps out with an honorable soldier who fought, who DIED, and saved us all from those Nazis a lot of us thought we were done with? You think THEY are disgusting and YOU are making America great again? Shame on you. If you think God has time to hate two good boys who have found happiness in each other, well, then, maybe Captain Rogers needs to go punch a few more of you since it seems you didn't learn your lesson in 1945!_

_Sincerely, Steve and Jimmy's devoted friends,_

_Lidia Stepanich, writing on behalf of herself and Ollie Peters, Esther Berman and George Miles_

 

George sets down his teacup. Pepper has the slightest twinkle in her eye. George clears his throat.

"Mr. Jarvis, would you please send flowers to my friend Lidia? Make them very large and very, very expensive."

"It's always wonderful to catch up with one's friends, don't you think?" Pepper grins, as she deftly pushes another slice of cake onto George's waiting plate.

 

********

 

 The intel the doc and Tony brought back was crystal-clear. Reconned buildings 1, 3, and 4 looked a little sinister until Kathleen pointed out the way the vents were angled, the way run-off was leaked (“Yeah,” Kathleen smiled, “they’re making commercial grade poison, not world-ending poison. Probably for the U.S.! We do a lot of that shit to developing countries!” Steve started to burn but Bucky held his hand and told him, gently, “not now, babe. One fight at a time.”). She even showed how the doors were locked. It was so simple once it was laid out. Building 2 was a completely different class. It had no vents that looked like regular vents. The entry was contained, and there weren’t any emergency exits. It was more isolated. The area around it was scrub, just a couple of sad trees at least 200 yards from the front doors. Kathleen pointed at features to remember.

“Steve, here at the northwestern corner is your concern. Heat signatures suggest between 125 and 150 people, mostly adults, in this room. From the layout and lack of drainage systems I have surmised the hostages are being held in a general purpose storage room. While you and Thor are clearing hostages, Tony and I will be here,” she points to a room in the northeast, “busting walls and looking into these refrigerated vats. I want a good look at what they are storing here. As you can tell from the long belt-like heat signature here,” now she is pointing at something running like an equator across forty percent of the building, “the main function of this building is to create something that is cooked up in the central labs and then portioned out and sealed on this factory assembly line. I need to know what it is that is so stable they can let people with minimal training safely package it. I think refrigeration is a key component. It’s also interesting that I only see one set of bathrooms, in between that assembly line set up and the storage areas. That says to me that once you were in there you have some mobility. I don’t like that. I want to know what wasn’t being handled with care.”

She paused and waited for questions, but none were forthcoming.

“Barnes, I leave it up to you and Clint how you would like to provide sniper coverage. Bruce, you’ll be our liaison with the UN convoy. For safety they’ll be parked across the river, one click south. I want us to fly casualties to that point. Nat, you’ll stay to triage for Bruce and work with the UN in that area. Hostages will be ferried across on a large raft being operated by our UN contacts, it will take any hostage who doesn’t test positive for a chemical agent to the waiting truck. As soon as I have seen the refrigerated vats for myself, Jess will be joining me to do quick exams. Anyone who passes our exam is free to board the truck.”

Steve’s eyebrows were growing closer by the minute.

“Colonel Potter, you’re exposed to a lot of threats if you start out anywhere near that building and we can’t guarantee that Tony can do the protecting he needs to do if you’re attached to him but also being a scientist _and_ a medical doctor.”

She smiled. “I don’t disagree. But I need into the vats to see what we’re dealing with, and being at Tony’s side while he drills straight through the northern wall is the safest bet. Besides, Jess will be coming straight for me from the south side of the compound.  He’s entering south, bearing immediately due west to hit the one office we see, gathering as much intel as he can. He dumps that into the live feed Jarvis sends back to Pepper and then he heads for me. Once he has me I’m back in my chair and testing hostages as fast as I can. I need you to keep the hostages in a line for me, and keep ISIL away from everyone. Is it doable?”

Now Barnes inhaled, carefully modulating his voice so it was clear he was following his own line of inquiry, not necessarily speaking as part of an alliance with his lover.

“Ma’am, uh, Kathleen, we can start off sniping and move in to repel forces coming at us from the northwest, and the UN is holding the line for us in the south, but I think it’s a mistake to ignore our vulnerability from the northeast. Just because there is a river there doesn’t mean we’re home free. I think we set up Clint along the ridge of trees, that scraggly little copse, ‘cause it’s all we got, height-wise. But you drop me in the middle of it, ma’am. Put me on top of that building. That’s where I belong. Whatever might come out of that building, if we’re all gonna get gassed while ISIL throws Jeeps at us and so on…I’ll play canary. Or whatever. I belong there.” Bucky isn’t making eye contact with anyone, but his knee bumps Steve’s, just a touch.

“Canary my ass,” Clint huffs from the seat he’s sharing with Nat, “don’t they got some sorta Soviet red bird of the Black Death of something?”

Bucky huffs a smile in return.

“Nah. Anybody else miss Sam, though?”

 _There’s a thought_ , Steve realizes, as they break to get ready for a quick nap before go-time. _Dammit, I wish Sam was here._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's great to be back! Disabled author has not been able, but that is better now, thankfully (hopefully). Regular updates coming; I've missed you!


	11. Kill Shot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What is ISIL hiding from the Avengers?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for realistic war action sequence, guns being fired, and death of non-Marvel characters.

********

This focus was what Jess lived for. He loved this moment, the calm in the dawn before you went out and fought for people who couldn’t fight for themselves. That’s how he saw it; those elderly men, the young housewives, terrified kids who should have been behind a school desk…he was their champion. He was their gladiator. They couldn’t defend themselves against the bastards who wanted to steal their hope and innocence. Since they needed him for protection he owed them his best concentration and focus. That’s the focus he lived for. He took a second to tune into the environment, sometimes imagining it was the roar of a crowd like Romans screaming for their newest champion. It wasn’t hard to think of a hot and dusty Roman arena in the Middle East. Weak sun, calls to morning prayer, and the smell of dried grass washed over his eyes, his ears, his nose. He always tried to consciously engage his senses before everything went to hell in a flash of burning ordinance and bloody limbs. In the minutes where the team prepared to fly to the site Jess sniffed the crisp air and checked his gear piece by piece through his fingers.

Tony flew the plane in a nearly-silent glider mode. They touched down 300 yards south of the building’s only door. A quick scan of the horizon showed no obvious activity. Tony asked JARVIS for scans in real time. They displayed heat signatures within the building. It seemed the citizens of Moorad were still locked in the northwestern storage room. It looked like four or five guards stood in doors and halls around the bathrooms. The assembly line, refrigeration units, and office looked empty. Everyone took a last glance at the building layout then set to disembark.

Tony opened the plane’s door and they approached the building on foot. Jess watched Barnes scale the east side of the 15-foot exterior with ease. Cap had ultimately agreed he would be most effective there, setting up a variety of medium to long range explosives. He concentrated on the roads leading from the towns directly west. He would set scanners to monitor activity over the river bank. After a minute of arranging weapons Barnes stood, turned to the southwest corner, then let the sun catch his raised arm twice. A brief flash of metal answered from the copse of trees. Jess was satisfied Bucky’s six was covered by Barton’s sniping position so he concentrated on approaching the front door without being seen through the one exterior window in the room they had labeled the office. He was dimly aware Steve, Natasha, and Thor were taking up position around the corner. Bruce wanted Natasha to stay behind with him but she made the very reasonable argument that the hostages would probably rather see a female face amongst the rescuers. As soon as everyone was lined up for Kathleen to examine Natasha could retreat. They were using the west wall for cover while Tony and Kathleen flew a newly rigged Mark VII suit around to the northeast. Bruce had worked his way south so any hostage not infected with a biochemical agent could be loaded up into the waiting UN truck.

Jess crouched at the entry to the weapons factory. His entire world tunneled to what he could see, hear and smell at the end of his assault rifle. Only his earpiece could penetrate that kind of concentration.

“Standby, we’re breaching laboratory fridge room A now. Be ready to raise hell on my mark.” Stark begin to use the repulsor blast from his left hand to carve a window. As the concrete crumbled away from the wall, deafening alarms began to wail and Tony shouted, “Breach! Go, let’s go!”

Jess pulled out the blast charge he had been given and stuck it in between the hinges of the heavy front door. He ran ten feet in a crouching position and covered his ears. In three seconds the blast had caved most of the door inwards and he inched in, sweeping his M27 left to right. He let the dust clear as he took partial cover in an alcove in the containment hallway. JARVIS couldn’t find a schematic for that space but it was assumed to be heavily fortified since all employees would have to pass through to enter or leave the building. He cautiously stuck his head out from the alcove. Seeing nobody, he hugged one wall and advanced to the other end of the containment area. He took out another charge and blasted the door at the end of the containment hallway, then entered the building proper.

The inside reminded him of a very old, poorly lit elementary school. There were long hallways covered in cheap flooring, a few lazy posters stuck on a bulletin board, and metal lockers outside doorways requiring a code to open. Those codes were not his job. He was to sweep immediately to his left then empty the office of all intelligence related to the facility before he became Kathleen’s personal protection detail in the back half of the operation.

It was quick work to blow the office door. He flipped the switch on top of his helmet to begin recording and transmitting everything he was seeing directly to the Eyes & Ears division back home. First, he did a quick visual sweep looking for obvious booby traps. Satisfied there weren’t obvious traps, he took out his can of highly specialized trap-finding material and employed the device. It didn’t trigger any lasers or tripwires, so he threw the can behind him and got to work. He could always get another one back in the States; Silly String had _so_ many uses not listed on the can. Damn fine tactical tool, for his (and Stark’s) money. Jess was partial to the purple. No reason, he just liked the look of it.

He methodically searched from left to right, up going down. There were two file cabinets, two computers (not laptops which was a bitch), and framed photos all over the cheap wood-look paneling. He moved to both computers and grabbed one hard drive, which he set near the remains of the door. He then went to the file cabinets and checked the locks. Four drawers were accessible without the key, two drawers needed to be unlocked. He popped the lock button with the butt of his gun and grabbed as many secured files as he could. He didn’t bother with anything not important enough to be under lock and key. He prepared to run the hard drive and stack of files back to the plane.

As Jess was humping it doubletime to the plane, several things happened at the same time.

All of them were very, very bad.

Barnes took over the comms links to announce, “I got incoming from the northwest, at least 200 ISIL by car, foot and horseback.”

Captain Rogers stepped on the end of that transmission with, “…trying to breach west wall to secure…second path to the hostages may be compro--…this wall is much thicker than the plans...” It sounded like his comms were far away or under water. Everything was distorted. Static cut off the ends of each sentence.

Banner was shouting “Incoming my end! ISIL by truck towards the convoy!” when they all heard Tony’s earpiece pick up loud, rushing air. Tony’s comm unit shut down the other mics, an emergency protocol none of them had ever needed before. Tony’s voice came strained over the sound of Dr. Potter’s whimpering breaths. “Cap, everybody, get out. Get out _now_. It’s a goddamned set up. Repeat, ambush. Ambush. Kathleen has opened a refrigerator unit and it’s not chemicals. It’s the hostages,” Tony gabbled while trying to muffle Kathleen’s crying, “it’s the bodies of the Moorad hostages.”

All of them froze for a fraction of a second.

Which was the moment the northwestern corner of the building detonated.

********

 

George and Eduardo were pottering about the tailoring suite, working on laundry and minor repairs. Eddie had Mr. Jarvis post a bulletin announcing this week only, every employee who came in to the shop for the first time would receive a free signature handkerchief, compliments of G. Miles & Son. It had been a successful campaign and they were delighted to meet so many new potential customers. Eddie had a flair for the personal touch and George was more than happy to let him take the lead in establishing a broader customer base. It also brought new entertainment and gossip to their door, which had been in woefully short supply since DaNeesha was taking a well-earned vacation.

The whole building knew that today’s mission was very important, possibly one of the heaviest missions the Avengers might attempt. Although the events of this latest rescue attempt were supposed to be a secret everyone knew the team would be trying to liberate hostages taken by ISIL. The odds were a terrifying prospect, in George’s mind. There were eight fighters to liberate over a hundred people and no way to guess how many enemies. It could not possibly have escaped George’s attention that this daring raid was so very like the raid at Azzano; the raid that gave Captain Rogers his rightful pride of place, as well as the heart of the young man who was Steve’s equal in every important way. There was a popular story passed down the generations that Bucky Barnes, imprisoned and tortured, refused to leave his liberator to die even to save himself. The most romantic version claimed Captain America told his sergeant to leave him to a fiery end and Barnes had screamed, “No! Not without you!” It was that declaration that gave Captain Rogers the strength to jump across an inferno and become the hero he is today. Publicly, Mr. Miles would tell his son that those kinds of syrupy inventions were best left to the television melodramas they watched together some evenings.

Privately, George may have mentioned to Esther that had they been trapped, young lovers captured in the prime of their lives, he most certainly would have jumped a raging inferno so he would never be without her. Esther quite loyally proclaimed she wouldn’t have even noticed Steve if George had come to rescue her.

ISIL was proof that the ideals of the devil will always tempt a certain kind of misfit. Nazis, Hydra, ISIL; they were different names for the same evil. There will always be people who stand outside looking in with hatred in their black and corrupted hearts. George would never stop being proud that his life was full of people who refused that kind of corruption. As soon as the Avengers returned to their building safe and sound George would take the opportunity to tell each one of them, personally, how special they were for fighting the good fight.

At quarter to eleven a young man named Okuyo came into the suite asking for help with a shirt cuff that had frayed and looked unkempt. Even though it was approaching midnight both of the tailors were wide awake, as anxious for the mission reports as everyone else in the building. The young man needed his cuffs fixed so he could attend a meeting at the United Nations shortly after midnight; he asked if they would let JARVIS display the mission footage so he could prepare for his meeting. George put it up immediately and turned up the sound while Eddie fixed the cuffs. George was giving Okuyo’s shoes a quick buff; extra sharpness never hurts in a professional situation.

All three gentlemen were staring at the screen as Mr. Stark’s camera transmitted Kathleen pulling away metal sheathing inside of a cylindrical cooling unit. The camera faithfully recorded every inch of colorful children’s clothing, blue scarves covering hair, bodies twisted in agony under light cotton button-ups. They heard Kathleen’s gasp, saw her hand recoil as she tried to run away even though she was secured to Tony’s suit with a metal and canvas framework. Eddie and George turned to each other in disbelief when Mr. Stark’s words gave shape to the mass of horrors nobody had expected. And, finally, they saw the camera shake violently at the same time a shattering blast was broadcast through the speakers.

There was another moment of shaking before the Iron Man suit flew into the daylight and faced what was left of the corner of the building. Smoke was billowing around men with guns pouring from the blast site, screaming in triumph and running towards Steve.

Stark started, “God, no,” then everything went blurry as the feed to New York was jeopardized. George felt his hands grab at his work table, trying to stay on his feet while his knees were buckling under him. Eduardo and Okuyo dashed to hold him up, all eyes still on the screen. The last thing they saw before the transmission cut completely was Tony’s view of Captain Rogers, being swarmed under a tidal wave of screaming human hatred.

 

 ********

Jess ran hell for leather towards the plane carrying the hard drive and documents. He threw the hatch open, tossed them in haphazardly, and had already started running back towards the fight by the time the jet door had resealed. He could see Barton running from his perch, shooting arrows into the crowd of fighters surrounding Cap. Thor had lifted Natasha onto the roof and she stood next to Barnes, both firing everything they had to stop the men they had thought were hostages. Nat had taken shrapnel to the knee and was running on adrenaline and fear. Thor took off from the roof to Banner’s position, he and the Hulk would protect the workers who had assembled to ferry the hostages they now knew were murdered. JARVIS had estimated more than a hundred hostiles coming from the south and no way to guess if they could call for more.

Cap was now fifteen deep on three sides and no amount of defensive technique could protect him from so many guns. The only reason he was still standing was positioning. He had made his way to the center of the west wall so his back remained protected. Jess came around to Cap’s nine o’clock and shot through the mob at an angle so he didn’t endanger his comrades. With Jess and Barton laying some cover the three-man team began a tactical retreat towards the plane.

Stark had flown towards the jet as soon as he saw the insurgents streaming out of the building. Kathleen was now in the jet, buckled into a seat and pointing an AK-47 towards the door. Tony had flown back towards the fighting so they could get their people off the ground and out of this hellhole as soon as humanly possible. He was thirty feet in the air blasting repulsors at the legions coming from the west, holding off reinforcements so Nat and Barnes could focus on the immediate danger.

It was time for Barnes and Nat to retreat towards the plane. Barnes jumped first and took out enterprising fighters who had tried to surround the building. Then he caught Nat with his left arm while the right kept firing a grenade launcher at the men now realizing what the escape route would be. Barnes made a beeline for the jet, shooting all the way.

Cap provided cover along the south side of the building so Barton and Jess could hightail it back to the plane. In a split second where Steve couldn’t cover both men Barton caught a bullet that tore through the meat of his thigh. He went down screaming, his bow laying under him and bent along one edge. Cap rolled to Barton’s position but there wasn’t any way to lay down suppressive fire and treat Barton, too. Tony, hearing Barton’s shouts in his earpiece, turned for a moment to see what had happened. That moment was all the fighters in a jeep needed. They launched a volley of grenades at the suit and two of them were a direct hit. Tony had a barely controlled landing, falling to earth with hostiles on all sides.

Jess was vaguely aware that Cap was shouting for Thor’s position only to learn he was still pulling out innocents and defending their southern approach. He also heard Cap and Barnes shout at each other but nothing they said made any difference. Jess was already running to Tony, blasting everything that moved and silently wondering how the hell he’d move a man wearing a car’s worth of equipment. Then Barnes was there with him. Jess watched in slow motion as Barnes ripped open Tony’s suit and pulled the limp body out of the wreckage, screaming at Jess to cover their six o’clock as they ran towards the plane.

Jess knew things were bad now, because slow motion became still frames floating past his face. Now Barnes is running behind him, now Jess is facing all of the insurgents, now there are too many to shoot all at once and they’re starting to surround him. _Of course_ , a thought drifted by, _Barnes is enhanced and can outrun me by miles._ Still, the world stood nearly still, despite Cap, Barnes, Nat and Clint all shouting over the comms.

 _The shouting is useless_ , Jess thought. Or maybe he said it out loud. _I’m surrounded. Get the fuck out of here, guys. Pop smoke, pop smoke, fucking get your asses off the ground NOW_.

Then the world came back to speed, as his arms, his legs, his body was lifted away on a sea of terrible screaming. He felt the warm wetness of his bladder going, and the sound of his own voice screaming without his permission. He didn’t even know what he meant. But he screamed it anyway, until he didn’t.

 ********

Barnes was running back to the plane, barely able to hold Stark in his arms and shoot a way clear at the same time. Cap was running to meet him the last few yards, the jet already set for immediate takeoff. It took Steve less than a glance to realize Bucky had heard Jess screaming, pleading with him, “help me, help me.” Already surrounded and carried away by dozens of insurgents, yelling, whooping and hoisting their trophy, Barnes had done one last thing and then turned to leave this place forever. Fifty yards out from the fray the Weapon came up, gripping Buck’s favorite SA Vz. 61 Skorpion, and he had sprayed Jess’s body with a volley of kill shots. Then he had turned around and run back to the plane.

But Bucky didn’t get on the plane. Steve was certain. As they took off from that hellhole, desperate to find Bruce and Thor, Steve wondered if anybody else could tell the Winter Soldier had returned.


	12. The Worth of a Man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve really will put everything on the line. More than he means to.

 ********

Everything was chaos rushing past Steve at the speed of light. Tony was flying the plane, shouting at him, and trying to raise Bruce, Thor, and New York, all at the same time. Bucky was utterly withdrawn. Barton was screaming in agony, Natasha trying to hold his leg together, her own knee so savagely torn apart she couldn’t even touch her own leg. Kathleen was on the floor at Clint’s side, Steve using his body as ballast and his arms as a brace to secure the trembling doctor as she examined the injured.

Less than one minute had hurtled by them when the doctor whispers that Nat’s knee is seriously injured, but Clint’s wound is “life-threatening.” Steve immediately starts scrambling around in blood-soaked debris on the floor, looking under seats until he finds the medical-looking kits Kathleen had the day (was it only _two days ago_?) they met. The kits Jess had handed… _oh_. Jess.

Steve inhales a shuddering breath and uses it to beat the pain back under his stomach. He can fight for days, _has_ fought for days, shoving the pain so deeply inside of himself that there’s no outward sign he’s destroyed. It’s what he does now because his team needs a strong and unflappable captain and he’s the only Cap they’ve got.

 As he pulls out the things she asks for he notices, almost unaware he has done so, that although the doctor has no combat experience Kathleen is pretty damn controlled under the circumstances. It helps him to feel he won’t have to carry this one on his own, so he tries to glance between Bucky and the doc but she needs constant maneuvering. He has no idea how to ask Nat to evaluate Bucky without actually asking the question aloud. Steve’s eyes glance again towards Bucky, the only stationary and quiet thing in this freefalling abomination of a mission. As long as he remains sitting quietly with his awful, empty eyes staring out of the window, Steve chooses to believe they’re not the Soldier’s targets.

He turns his thoughts back towards the surgical suite now set up on the floor of the damn airplane. He knows soldiers all over the world have survived worse than this in dirtier conditions. That said, he can’t help but feel his teammate, _his friend,_ is having surgery on the floor of a fucking PLANE because his team leader was useless. Barton is sweating and pale. He’s laid out on his back, Nat between him and the rest of the cabin. She’s shoring him up with her body; her mangled leg awkwardly held. Natasha had already pulled her own go bag she kept on the plane and wrestled out three syringes. The first shot of morphine went straight into Barton’s leg while he was shaking his head and trying to make Nat jab herself with the medication first. After sixty seconds she asked if he needed another.

“Goddammit, no, Natasha,” he gritted out, voice raspy from screaming. The doc, who was hands-deep in his leg trying to clean out the wound, shook her head slightly and murmured, “Ms. Romanov, please look through the blue one,” her chin jutting out to point in the direction of her medical bags. It was Steve who found the injection of Dilaudid and less than thirty seconds after dosing, Clint was no longer screaming. Nat nodded to herself and finally injected her own leg. The morphine wouldn’t take long to act so she made certain her body was angled more on her left hip than right, meaning she was settling herself on the side touching Clint. Steve didn’t know why she took the shot as an opportunity to shift herself. Then, he considered Bucky. Suddenly, it was clear Natasha had been tracking Barnes’ behavior as closely as he had. From her vantage point on the floor she wouldn’t truly be able to stop Barnes if he was further gone than Steve obviously hoped. Bucky could take them out in a matter of seconds even if he stopped to make sure he had control of the aircraft before he did it.

Then Steve realizes if anything happens she plans to simply slump her body in the direction it’s already headed, thereby becoming a meat shield for her injured love. Steve’s throat is suddenly so tight he wonders, manically, if asthma could come back from grief.

Barnes is staring at Natasha, his eyes squinting like he’s trying to hold on to something right behind his eyes. His right hand reaches towards her knee. She automatically blocks his approach with her forearm and deflects his hand using Barnes’ momentum against him. He looks up from her knee, then softens the line of his body. Steve can’t breathe around the tightness in his throat; whatever Bucky has in mind, he doesn’t mean to threaten Natasha. Bucky’s flesh hand reaches out again and gently touches the tip of Nat’s bloodied wound. With deliberate care, he brings his fingertip to Nat’s face and gently smears her forehead.

“Good thinking, Sergeant Barnes. Field protocols are very much warranted here,” Kathleen says as she gently dips her own finger in a pool of Clint’s blood then uses her gloved finger to mark an ‘M’ on his forehead. Steve lets out a shaky breath and can’t seem to notice fresh tears falling down his chin.

Bucky withdraws his finger and nods at the doc, then turns his attention back to the window.

 

********

 

George has the sensation of being in a tunnel. Everything around the tailoring suite fades into a blur of nothingness on either side as the screen they’re watching gets sharper and closer. Suddenly Eddie and another set of arms are under his own, helping him to the couch in the fitting room. Okuyo rushes out, thanking them and apologizing that he must get back to his department immediately.

In a few seconds something starts to smell nice. There’s heat, weight in his fingers, ah. A cup of tea in the offing. Eduardo comes back with enough sugar cubes to reward a stable of horses and gently places them in the cup George is still holding. George doesn’t want to let the cup go, but nor does he believe he could keep down any tea.

“Dad, drink the tea,” Eddie says firmly. “We don’t know what’s happening, but we know Steve is the best fighter in the world, backed up by a team that fought aliens, dad. Actual aliens. I’m gonna get more info from some guys I know down in Eyes & Ears, I’ll be back soon. Jarv, please monitor my dad’s uh, monitor him, please. Let me know if he needs anything.”

“Naturally, Mr. Alvarez-Miles.”

George looks up to meet his son’s crinkling eyes.

“Oh, yeah. Uh, I mean, it’s not legally changed, but it’s for us and our friends, just, it seemed like it was, nice? I guess? I thought we could see how it feels, because we’re a family. But, yeah. I’m gonna go find out what’s happening, dad, I’ll be right back.”

George does drink some of the tea, because he wants to be polite. Truthfully, it’s rather awful. After a moment’s thought, he walks to the little refrigerator and pulls out a bottle of Coca-Cola. Eddie practically marinates himself in the stuff, so they have a steady supply. George unscrews the cap, takes a quick sip, and decides the Coca-Cola is only half the answer to the question he didn’t realize he was asking himself.

“Mr. Jarvis, please let Eduardo know I have returned to my suite and he will find me there.”

With that, George grabs his personal belongings, shuts off the lights, and walks home. It’s the work of a second to locate the other half of the answer.

If the question is, “what do I need right now?” the answer is a square-cut tumbler filled with four ounces of Coca-Cola.

Plus a giant slug of the bourbon he now keeps for just these sorts of inquiries.

 

 ********

 

Tony has gotten through to Thor. Thor often dislodges his earpiece and then doesn’t notice in time. Fortunately, he’s through this time. Unfortunately, it’s to say their position is fairly entrenched because the Hulk has upended a tree and is using it to club his foe in dramatic, arcing sweeps.

“While the warrior within me applauds such brute strength, I fear we have compromised the only road available to evacuate the United Nations’ vehicles and the brave sentinels within. The enemy has organized; eighty to a hundred men or more attack with each wave and we have mounted a defense against three such waves. I know not how many may come after this. Your assistance would be a welcome relief to myself, but, also your own wounded spirits. The way to honor one’s fallen brother is to avenge him! If I am yet standing after this battle, I swear to you I shall do my utmost to find the remains of our fallen hero, that we may send him to Valhalla with our gratitude as well as our sorrow.” Thor then cuts out for a moment as he dispatches with a jeep filled with ISIL combatants, Tony twists briefly and looks at Steve, who shrugs.

“Thor, I’m three fighters down and we’ve sustained heavy fire. Can you maintain position until Tony, Barnes and I sweep far south and cut off the wave from their six?”

“Aye, Steven, we can. If you should approach from the air, raining bullets upon our enemies, it may be all we need to satisfactorily terminate their primitive offensive.” Steve winces at the characterization—he lost a good man today to this “primitive” adversary--but gives a quick thumbs up to Tony anyway. Tony set coordinates to defend the UN trucks’ position from the air.

Steve looks at Barnes, who nods once as he pulls out the grenade launcher and sets it on the floor. Both men then stand in the tiny plane to carefully lift and settle Clint’s unconscious form against the jet cabin’s wall. Bucky searches for a blanket to cover Barton while Steve briefs Natasha. He explains the mission although he’s certain she’s been conscious this whole time.  He hands her a machine gun, with orders to defend surviving team members and act as their leader should the unthinkable happen and Steve is KIA. She acknowledges the _de facto_ battlefield promotion and repositions herself on the floor. She’s still unable to stand or sit in a chair, so she leans her back against the now re-seated doc’s legs. Because Nat is who she is, she files away the fact that things were bad enough for Tony to not even raise a token complaint at being passed over for promotion.

 

********

 

George is sitting quietly in front of the television. Most of the major networks have interrupted their regular programming to report the Avengers have been sighted in combat against “a group purporting to be members of the Islamist State of Iraq and the Levant; ISIL.” The images running on a loop are obviously videos taken on whatever one finds to be the equivalent of a Middle Eastern Starkphone. The Hulk is visible in the distance, sweeping something looking like all the world as though Dr. Banner’s alter ego is using a cricket bat while Thor bowls terrorists. After almost thirty solid minutes of nothing new or fresh in the coverage, every station dials up their frenzy to eleven when a small plane comes screaming over the terrain with two men hanging out of the jet’s wide cargo door.

George needs only the glint off Jimmy’s arm to suddenly feel overwhelming relief. Even from that distance it’s obvious that if Sgt. Barnes is on one side of the cargo door, launching grenades into the rear of the enemy’s loose formation, then the man at the other side is Capt. Rogers (in the midst of battle George’s head would not let him demote Steve to the familiar ‘Mr.’ prefix they are both more comfortable with). Only Cap could be that size, or that strong, with one leg tethered to the base of a seat while his body hangs out of the aircraft. He’s firing on the insurgents. Naturally, the sight of Captain America firing a weapon is a foreign image for most Americans; George spends ten minutes flipping through stations to see what each news team makes of the development.

 _They may criticize the young Captain all they want_ , George muses, _but a shield is to protect immediately. Steve can’t stay for a year safeguarding every innocent man, woman and child._ As he himself served, George harbors no illusions regarding the price of freedom. Long term safety means a wartime footing, and war means guns. It’s tragic, but it’s that damn simple.

George is contemplating checking Fox News to see if they claimed hanging out of a plane and shooting guns at terrorists was some sort of gay agenda. He might want another finger of bourbon before tackling that, but only makes it as far as the middle of his small kitchen island when Mr. Jarvis asks if Eduardo was welcome to come in with very important news. He’s hardly answered in the affirmative before Eddie barrels through, with red eyes and a shaky voice.

“Dad, dad, please come sit with me. We need to talk.”

George abandons his quest for bourbon feeling very confused.

“Eddie, the TV says this is live footage. They’re fine, son. Aren’t they fine? The footage is all over the news. You can see them. What did you hear?”

Eddie sits down next to his dad and relays the news he’s brought back from E&E.

“Oh, god, dad. It’s Jess. Jess was in the fire fight at the first location. He never made it close enough to the plane so Thor has to fly back for him as soon as they’ve finished off the attack near the UN convoy.”

In all the rest of his days, George will castigate himself for failing to understand Eddie the first time.

“Eduardo, it’s times like these men must keep their chins up. They surely have not abandoned young Mr. Byron. They’ll return for him and he can most certainly hide in that cement building until— “

“No, dad,” Eddie says, fresh tears drowning his explanation, “Thor isn’t going back for Jess. Thor is going back for Jess’s body.”

George feels everything in the world get heavy and slow. He’s devastated for young Jess. He is also devastated for young Captain Rogers, who must return to a home debating his very worthiness as a man, to admit he lost one of their own.  

Eddie brings another tumbler and the entire bottle of bourbon. They settle in for a long night of sadness.

 

 ********

 

As Tony set the coordinates for their short flight to Germany (and their top-notch US military hospital) Steve evaluates his team. Nat and Clint are passed out on the floor, Nat’s arm covering Clint’s chest and Clint’s nose buried in her hair. Tony is doing ten things at once, as usual, and doing all of them well, as usual. Kathleen is talking on a secured sat-phone with a man at the Pentagon who seems to be her subordinate. Although, Steve would guess that absolutely everybody in the military, right up to and including its Commander in Chief, is essentially “Dr. Death’s” subordinate. He takes a second to reflect that although she’s unquestionably strong and capable--not physically, but in other (more important?) ways—he didn’t think to compare her to Peggy. That’s a relief. He was beginning to wonder if comparing every exceptional woman he met with Peggy was somehow a bad habit. Then again, in his line of work, he meets a lot more exceptional women than maybe he would have otherwise. Nat, Pepper, Maria Hill, George’s lady love Esther. Hell, even the lady who works the coffee bar in the Tower is there trying to rebuild her life after her husband died in the Battle for New York.

At last, Steve lets himself study Bucky’s face without bothering to hide his curiosity or concern. Bucky’s expression reminds Steve of the first horrible moment in the lab when Bucky re-lived his pain as Tony and Bruce made his memories come alive. Steve is suddenly overwhelmed as his treacherous brain supplies _you make him look like that. He was so damned sad when he killed and you just don’t care, do you? Every report of his sniper missions, every debriefing at Shield, every civilian accidentally caught in crossfire…you know how it destroys him Every. Single. Time. But you made him do it again. You don’t deserve Bucky’s love because you made him do the only, only, only thing he has ever asked you to not do. You made him shoot an innocent person. You made him shoot somebody he cared for._

Because Captain America is inadequate—because _Steve_ is a failure as a tactician, as a soldier, as a goddamned MAN— his love has retreated into the darkest recesses of his fractured mind and Steve has no way to follow him there. Steve botched the mission and now they’ve left behind the body of one man and the peace, the soul, of another. Steve made Bucky lose himself again and it was entirely Steve’s own fucking fault.

 

********

Current threat-level: minimal. Self assessment: uninjured, operational, physical status indicates nineteen hours of peak performance before requiring nutritional supplementation. Approximately 39 hours until next sleep cycle is indicated. Time until wipe and cryo...

Time until wipe and cryo...

Reject wipe and cryo protocol?

Wipe and cryo?

Wipe and cryo?

Wipe and cryo?

Wipe and cryo?

_I don't want to. I want to stay with Steve._

RESPONSE TO "RETURN TO WIPE AND CRYO" PROTOCOL UNCLEAR.

_I'll reassess later._

Team assessment: Banner and Thor: currently detached from unit. Byron: deceased. Barton: injured status, requires further intervention by medical staff. Romanoff: injured status, requires further intervention by medical staff. Potter, currently on assignment with Avengers Unit, seconded from Pentagon detail: uninjured, displayed signs of emotional disturbance until falling asleep at 22:12. Stark: Uninjured, displaying hyper-situational awareness. Rogers: uninjured, sad.

Sad?

Reject superfluous observation?

_No. Steve is sad. That's important._

IMMEDIATE RETURN FOR WIPE AND CRYO INDICATED.

_I don't do that anymore._

IMMEDIATE RETURN FOR WIPE AND CRYO NOT OPTIONAL.

_Yes, it is. I know it is. All I have to do is, all I have to do is, ask. I can ask. I can ask Steve if I have to return to wipe and cryo. Steve is the captain._

A superior officer will be furious the weapon has questioned protocol. 

IMMEDIATE RETURN FOR WIPE AND CRYO NOT OPTIONAL.

IMMEDIATE RETURN FOR WIPE AND CRYO NOT OPTIONAL.

IMMEDIATE RETURN FOR WIPE AND CRYO NOT OPTIONAL.

_I don't do that anymore._

_I don't do that anymore._

_NotanymoreNotanymoreNotanymoreNotanymoreNotanymoreNotanymoreNotanymoreNotanymoreNotanymoreNotanymoreNotanymoreNotanymoreNotanymoreNotanymoreNotanymoreNotanymoreNotanymoreNotanymoreNotanymoreNotanymore._

_NEVER AGAIN._

 

 

"Rogers, do I have to return for wipe and cryo?"

_Please, no._

_Please, no._ _Please, no._ _Please, no._ _Please, no._ _Please, no._ _Please, no._ _Please, no._ _Please, no._ _Please, no._ _Please, no._ _Please, no._ _Please, no._ _Please, no._ _Please, no._ _Please, no._ _Please, no._ _Please, no._ _Please, no._ _Please, no._ _Please, no._ _Please, no._ _Please, no._ _Please, no._ _Please, no._ _Please, no._ _Please, no._ _Please, no._ _Please, no._ _Please, no._ _Please, no._ _Please, no._ _Please, no._ _Please, no._ _Please, no._ _Please, no._ _Please, no._ _Please, no._ _Please, no._ _Please, no._ _Please, no._ _Please, no._ _Please, no._ _Please, no._ _Please, no._ _Please, no._ _Please, no._ _Please, no._ _Please, no._ _Please, no._ _Please, no._ _Please, no._ _Please, no._ _Please, no._ _Please, no._ _Please, no._ _Please, no._ _Please, no._ _Please, no._ _Please, no._ _Please, no._ _Please, no._ _Please, no._ _Please, no._ _Please, no._ _Please, no._ _Please, no._ _Please, no._ _Please, no._ _Please, no._ _Please, no._ _Please, no._ _Please, no._ _Please, no._ _Please, no._

"Soldier?"

_Designation "Soldier" rejected._

" **Bucky**? Oh, oh, my god. Baby. NO. Baby, please come here. Please, please come here. No. No, I promise. There's no wipe and cryo. There's never any wipe and cryo again. I promise."

 

 


	13. What One Can, What One Must

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How is the aftermath of the skirmish experienced by those back home?

 ********

_Ladies and gentlemen, please stand by for Ms. Potts. She will be making an important announcement this morning at 8:00._

“What?” George mumbled as he unrolled himself from the afghan he had been sleeping under. He and young Eduardo had watched the news until 4:15 in the morning, flipping between stations while Eddie reported developments and theories cropping up on social media. He was now snoozing fitfully at the end of the sofa. George wasn’t sure when he had been covered or even how he had acquired this particular blanket. After staring at it for a minute he recognized Lidia’s handiwork. George knew a great many accomplished, daring, and worldly people. If he had to guess, he’d wager Lidia’s life story left most of them in the dust. If people still used the words “renaissance man,” or woman, it would fit Lidia very well.

“Eduardo, Mr. Jarvis said Pepper needs to make an announcement. Are you awake?”

George tapped Eddie on the shoulder again then walked into the kitchen. He came back five minutes later with weak tea improperly made (a microwave was involved, for god’s sake) and some dry toast. They sat on the couch together, sipping the tea and pretending to fuss with the toast. At eight on the dot Pepper came through the Tower-wide system.

“Good morning, Stark International. This is Pepper Potts. Today I’m addressing you not as CEO but as a colleague, and a friend. I’m sorry I must tell you that we have lost one of our own. I know this will be painful to hear, so this single announcement will replace our traditional sit-downs with each department. It’s imperative that we band together so everyone hears accurate information and avoids hurtful speculation.

“Most of us in the Tower were watching the mission the Avengers undertook to rescue the citizens of Moorad. You were able to see what the team saw until the feed was disrupted. Shortly after Dr. Kathleen Potter discovered the remains of civilians within that factory the team was ambushed by a faction of ISIL. The abducted townspeople had been used to lure the Avengers to that remote building. The terrorists were waiting inside to ambush our team. Many of you were watching the mission feed when we saw Captain Rogers being mobbed by hostile forces.

“I’m sorry to inform you,” Pepper whispered as her throat closed at the thought of saying her next words, “I am very sorry to confirm that our highly respected and popular security expert Jess Byron was killed as he fought against that mob to save the lives of Sgt. Barnes and Tony…and _Tony_ \--”

Pepper had pressed the mute button for the length of one terrified sob. Only one.

“In that skirmish, Natasha Romanoff and Clint Barton were seriously injured. The team evacuated to the US military hospital in Landstuhl where surgeons operated on Mr. Barton’s life-threatening injuries for more than three hours. His condition has been labelled ‘serious but stable.’ Ms. Romanoff has sustained a severe knee injury, she is listed in ‘fair’ condition. Dr. Potter has been released and is currently serving as the Pentagon’s official liaison to Stark International. Captain Rogers, Sergeant Barnes, and Mr. Stark have been held for observation but did not sustain major injury or illness. Dr. Banner and Thor Odinson have volunteered to stay in-country with the United Nations peacekeepers until suitable security arrangements can be made for those aid workers.

“A memorial service to commemorate Mr. Byron’s life will be held four days from now. From now until the memorial service there will be trained grief counselors available to all Stark employees. Please ask JARVIS to set up an appointment for you. These appointments will be provided free of charge. Anyone needing time off from work to cope with these events will be granted 24 hours leave, with full pay. If there is something I personally can do to help during this very difficult time please call my office and an appointment can be made to see me between 8:00 to 6:00. Our team will be landing in three days. Let’s do our best to make their return a period of comfort and support for everyone touched by this tragedy. Thank you for making Stark International a family; we will grieve together, we can heal together. Good day.”

George took a deep breath and pulled forth a sorely abused handkerchief to dab at his eyes. He looked over to Eddie. His ebullient son, usually so full of open, ridiculous humor, looked more despondent and angry than George could ever remember seeing. His eyes were still red and his voice was scratchy.

“Dad, are we open today? Because someone needs to tell Esther and all the other people Jess used to drive. And sewing stuff doesn’t help much compared to what the other departments are facing today.”

Good lord, it had slipped his mind that the rest of his friends had no idea what had happened. As he calculated time there and back his brain suddenly kicked into gear and he began to contemplate what a very, very important time lay right in front of them. He would need to act quickly; people really depended on George to be at his best when they were at their worst.

“Yes, Eddie, we must open today. You and I are about to face a monumental task in which we cannot fail. Please be ready for a full day in the suite starting one hour from now. I need to make some private phone calls from here and then I will be along to the shop.”

Eddie slowly dragged himself together and wandered out the door. George showered and dressed at record speed so he could call Ms. Potts, Captain Rogers, and Esther.

 

********

Steve couldn’t imagine what Mr. Miles needed that would qualify as an urgent business matter. Pepper assured him it was something only he could answer and that it was certainly more than a reassurance call to Steve that he had behaved well in this crisis. He nodded to the corporal who was working the screens in the secure transmissions room adjacent to the hospital. Within seconds he could see George, looking tired but determined. He dismissed the corporal and adjusted the volume so un-enhanced ears would struggle to make out the words.

“Captain Rogers, thank you for agreeing to speak with me,” George said, formally and with confidence.

“George, it’s just me and this connection is private. I’m so glad to see you.”

“Oh, my dear boy, I have been so terribly worried for you. We all have.”

Steve nodded, then muttered, “I fucked up, George. I really fucked up.” He had been holding everything in for so long. Everywhere he turned was someone else he couldn’t fall apart in front of. His entire goddamned world was made of people that _did not_ have the right, or the crushing obligation, to see Captain America cry.

“Steve, we will have a long talk, several long talks, about how we both know that isn’t the case. We’ll also have several long talks about how it will feel like it, no matter how many people tell you the team did everything they could. But right now, son, I need to talk to you about something you may not have considered. It’s my job to think of these things so others don’t have to. Let me do my part for the team, Steve.”

Steve nodded as George explained what needed to happen. The tailor was right; he never would have thought of any of this. He gave George the information and permissions he needed then signed off with a sigh and a groan. The corporal was summoned back into the room to continue facilitating the communications between Kathleen at the Pentagon, the team, the White House, and Pepper in New York. Returning to the Tower was going to be one of the worst journeys of his career.

 

 

George left the communications room at the back of the E&E department. The entire department looked like one of those spy novels or 007 movies in which he occasionally indulged. There were large screens at the front of the darkened room, with rows of tables facing them. On each table there were little cubicles, each wall only a foot high. Some people had computers, others charts and models that seemed to be floating. He thought they were called hellograms but he wasn’t certain. It was a long way off from anything he needed in his shop, thank you very much, and that was essentially where his curiosity ended.

He made his way back to the tailoring suite. As he walked Mr. Jarvis piped up to tell him his guests would be arriving in ten minutes. That was just enough time to grab Eddie and get this day started for good, rather than bad. So, they walked down to the lobby, where they met Esther and all their other friends living in the apartment complex with his lady love. They walked back towards the suite, expressing surprise and curiosity about everything from having a car meet them at 9:00 in the morning to how tired and pale Eddie looked. That last, naturally, was the topic that led them to the painful news. After his friends were settled in the tailoring suite George got to the matter at hand.

“Esther, Lidia, Ollie, Ella, this is so very hard to do and I apologize a dozen times over for needing to do it. I’m afraid there has been some terrible news. It was important to me, to both of us, that you hear all of the facts together and without the spin those awful news people will use on television.

“The team is in Germany. They’re coming home in three days. They had to leave the Middle East following that battle that wasn’t televised when Mr. Stark’s camera feed was disturbed. I spoke with Steve this morning on one of those internet channels with the TV. He and Jimmy are just fine, not a scratch, really. But,” George didn’t mean to let tears fall as he tried to inhale. He didn’t mean to fall apart, dammit, when his friends needed him. “But Jess didn’t make it. I’m so very sorry… Jess was cut off by those… those screaming animals. He was trying to get to Mr. Stark and he was surrounded. They killed him.”

Ella and Esther made similar sounds; an inhaled whimper as their hands covered wavering lips. Ollie put his arm around Ella and moved her into a hug as he mumbled about _damned foolish things, wars, when they take our best young men_. George patted Esther’s hand and they both wept quietly. For a moment, George was unable to tell what Lidia was thinking or feeling. He should have known he could always count on his son to move things in the direction they wanted to go.

“Lidia, if you promise not to judge me, I’ll offer you a stiff belt from the medicinal whisky I keep in my office.”

Lidia nodded at Eddie, saying, “I’m offended it took you this long to offer it, Mr. Alvarez.” Eddie produced Jameson’s and two Dixie cups. They knocked back an ounce and didn’t pretend they were stopping there. George cleared his throat and continued.

“I remembered what happened after Steve and Jimmy announced their relationship. Nobody would leave you alone because you’ve been friends for so long. In fact, they couldn’t get the press to stop bugging you—”

Esther’s voice was mournful. “The press only stopped hounding us because Jess ran them off.” Everybody paused a moment, thinking of the times Jess had been there to help them, drive them, the way he smiled and shook his head insisting it was absolutely his pleasure to make their lives seem easier. George picked up the thought again.

“I think the news will be announcing his death this afternoon. It makes me uncomfortable to think the press might try to bother you right now. Jess was photographed several times when he drove you here to come visit me,” he paused, omitting he still had nightmares of when he had been fragile, “and I think papers and magazines save pictures of people from SI. The pictures don’t mean much at the time, but if that person turns out to be a superhero they have files of photos to work with. That means you could be news as well, especially when they remember Lidia’s outstanding turn as the Times’ most honest op-ed writer!” The laugh for that felt wonderful, cutting through the grief haze.

“I have asked Pepper for some options for you, and she has been so generous. She said you could have two guest suites here for as long as you would like, with adjoining doors if you want. Everyone would have their belongings delivered from their apartments and you’d dine from the Stark gourmet meal service or over at my place. She also offered full-time bodyguards, medical staff, spa services, personal shopping and digital phone services to call loved ones. She covered every conceivable need while we work through our grief and the memorial service. All of you would be on a luxury vacation here if you wish but heaven knows I’m going to need help in the shop if you get bored of the millionaire lifestyle. What do you think?”

Ella and Ollie nodded so fast they looked like those bobbing-head dolls the Avengers collected of themselves.

“I would love to move my lady in here for a week of luxurious pampering! Where do you sign us up, Georgie?” Ollie and Ella beamed at each other which made a welcome change from the tear tracks shining below Ollie’s glasses. Lidia and Esther seemed to catch their infectious enthusiasm because less than a minute later George was having Mr. Jarvis take notes on what would be brought from the apartments and how Eleanor the cat would be transported. He happily bundled his friends off to their new guest suites with promises of dinner tonight and relief they would be taken care of. At last it was time to return to his professional obligations.

“Eduardo, we’ll be staying very late the next three nights. I suggest you make your apologies to Magdalena, it’s going to be an intense time.”

“What on earth are we doing that will take three days?”

“What we’re here for, Eddie,” and he began to pull up measurements. Eddie’s eyes grew round. This was impossible to do in three days. This was impossible.

 

Captain Rogers had talked with his team and reported back regarding clothing suitable for a formal memorial to a fallen team member. This memorial could be televised nationally and at the very least it would be in every newspaper in America. The team would be scrutinized during every action, every emotion. George would be constructing funeral suits for Bruce and Thor. Eddie would be modifying clothing for Natasha and Clint using the tech he had been perfecting to give them garments that would be wearable over their injured legs. Steve and Jimmy would be wearing dress blues, which Col. Rhodes had agreed to bring to the Tower. Pepper said she would take care of Tony’s suit.

At quarter after ten George brought a few of his favorite supplies with him to the large work table. By placing them at one end, he established this would be his “board,” his work area, for the next three days. He took a quick breath then jumped into the impossible.

First up, Thor. Jarvis spun rolling rack after rolling rack of dark material. Rejected, rejected, rejected, weave after weave flying past George’s eyes. So many things to consider he hardly knew he was doing it anymore. Gabardines, merinos, stretch wool twills, herringbone. He wants something that will drape nicely as there is no need to disguise a paunch or add width to his shoulders. He rejects all patterns because he doesn’t have time to match them exactly at every seam and he most certainly would require that of himself regardless of how little time there is. More bolts of fabric, rejected, rejected, “stop!”

A lovely bolt of charcoal, edging towards being black but never exactly reaching it, it’s perfect for constructing Thor’s suit. As a bonus, the very next bolt is a black merino softened by a gorgeous faux-twill treatment that makes it accessible, approachable. He marks it for Dr. Banner’s suit construction and returns to the task at hand.

He’s marking patterns and getting numbers from Mr. Jarvis as Eddie returns with a personal assistant trailing behind him. Mr. Jarvis had granted them access to Nat and Clint’s closets to get the clothing they would be wearing for the funeral. Eddie introduced the PA as Daisuke. George didn’t remember seeing him before, which prompted the explanation that he was in the newest class of PAs to start working in the building. George welcomed him and then gently shook his head, recalling how very overwhelming it could be the first time you work for Tony Stark.

Eddie and Daisuke were drawing something on a StarkPad while measuring Natasha’s trousers. She would be wearing black, flowing trousers and a modestly cut black blouse. Eddie seemed to be drawing scaffolding coming out of the outer seam of the pantleg; perhaps the technology that kept DaNeesha’s pants from touching her? That thought made him ask Eddie when she’d return, and was delighted to hear it would be tomorrow. George was looking very forward to seeing her again, even if her return was marred by the tragic loss of their friend.

George prepared to cut and pin the legs of the trousers for Thor’s suit. He turned his full attention to the task at hand, knowing he must mind the details so other people wouldn’t have to.


	14. Valhalla

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stark Tower mourns the loss of their friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains a funeral and brief trans-phobic language.

********

 

“Oh, my darling girl, it’s wonderful to see you again,” George murmured as he gave DaNeesha a gentle but very large hug that he certainly meant.

DaNeesha sniffed only a little when she said, “Georgie, it was awful. They came for us at dinner, said we needed to come back immediately, then in the airplane Jason told us.” George deftly shifted one arm around her shoulder to propel her to Eddie, so the poor dear could have the breakdown she was clearly trying not to unleash on his shirtfront.

“Neesha,” was all his son got out before the young ones were holding each other tightly, shaking with painful exhalation. Jess had been such a good friend to them. He had trusted Eddie with highly personal tailoring that required the utmost respect and faith in their business. Eddie had repaid that confidence several times over; constantly rethinking binding for the chest that married his new technical prowess with the best of old-fashioned design. George hadn’t asked where the pieces for Jess were currently housed. Going through them would hurt in the worst possible way. The kids were crying and clearly in pain. He’d need to balance compassion with the crushing tailoring schedule.

“DaNeesha, why don’t you and Eddie go get some dinner? You can both come back in half an hour or so. He can tell you about the projects we have going, and maybe you could help him.” That was a good idea for all of them, a break in the sadness for her and undoubtedly a large bottle of Coke for him. Someday George would think to ask how Eduardo had any teeth left at all. It also gave George time to drop in on ‘his girls,’ as he was now calling them. Esther and Lidia had promised him a tuna salad sandwich whenever he had time for one, and with the placket of Thor’s jacket giving him a headache some brain food could be exactly the thing.

 

 ********

 

He has roused at 13:07, unfamiliar setting, alone. He feigns brief nightmare-like disturbance and closes his eyes again, leaving a gap his eyelashes will conceal. If he is not alone they’re clearly employing video or audio surveillance so it is best to attempt information retrieval (and mission upload, if possible) without drawing attention to himself. The usual scan for retrieval of new information is shockingly bare. This prompts immediate analysis and verification of known facts.

The surface beneath him is soft; a bed. This itself is unusual thus it’s highly significant. He is not restrained within the bed. Arms and legs in optimal condition. Checklist of left arm complete and satisfactory. Torso in functional condition although mildly uncomfortable. Neck and head functional although painful. Wipe and cryo protocol...not found? The smells and ambient sound of equipment suggest he is in a hospital. The hospital is Western. The soft overhead paging system is in…English and sometimes German. This suggests Berlin or the surrounding area, 1947-1989.

He chases this thought. This is not West Germany. It’s only Germany. He can place himself in the year, now, but _why_?

Listen.

Listen.

 _There_.

Vocal pattern recognized as Wilson, Samuel Thomas. African American male,  5’10, 180 lbs. Unenhanced, no known mutant abilities. Formal military combat training, USAF. Pararescue with unit using wings. Current employment: therapist for veterans.

_Flying Sam and Lucky._

He recalls speaking with them. In the closet where he has the life he built for himself. The life he wanted because his home was there. Not mission assist Building, home. _Home_. He chases that, too. His home that he has, with the circle, around the other circle, and the star inside that. The blue line that goes all the way around, unbroken, to his Home.

 _Steve. Stevie._ Steve, and Clint, Bruce, and Natasha. Thor who felt bad he was elsewhere. Tony and the paralyzed doctor with the long red hair that was not his mother. There is no upload and there is no mission. He isn’t getting answers to questions because mission assist Building isn’t here with them in the large hospital they came to after fighting ISIL and Jess, the Marine corporal that had a body that had confused him but was a very good soldier and maybe-friend had died. Now he understands what Flying Sam is saying in the next room, where Steve must also be sitting.

“I don’t know man, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. But if Barnes truly doesn’t know that he’s coming in and out of his Winter Soldier persona then he is very dangerous. And you know I’m not taking about mowing down kids in Central Park, Rogers. It could be it’s mostly internalized. But you gotta know that if he was fragile to start, then was doing so much better on the ISIL mission, that’s significant, man. War brought back your Bucky from the 40s but you’ve told me how much he went through, then. How much you all did. You’re not gonna convince me everything is okay just because your boy went back to the days when he had only been captured and tortured _once_ , Steve.”

Now Bucky’s completely lucid. He remembers everything and that includes the strange sensation that he was always meant to be on the battleground. He had never felt better. That was true. It hurt sometimes, and things were complicated, but it was the purest form of love Bucky had ever known; his people were Good and the people they were fighting were Bad. They were not different, they were not misunderstood, they were truly Bad. Steve was Good. Steve needed him (needed!) to help fight that Bad and then let him have even more. It was an embarrassment of riches; he could use the Weapon he thought was a blight and everyone cheered that he did it. Then Steve praised how he did it, his tactics, his strategies, how safe Bucky kept _Captain. Fucking. America_. While he couldn’t pretend to believe how perfect this mission was feeling, sometimes, it didn’t hold a candle to the things that came after. Crushed together in blankets so they’d sleep an hour or so Steve would ask for help with planning, share his thoughts on how they were doing. Jokes about Tony that couldn’t be said over comms, questions they both had about Clint and why Nat was angry. Then came the sweetest of it all. Steve would ask to kiss Bucky, ask if caressing was wanted. Bucky could never nod fast enough. He could never have too much of Steven. Never have too much of Home and he’d beg to keep it forever.

Barnes wished he could tell Sam how much he wanted to never be the Soldier again. Somehow the Soldier could fool him, and Bucky was too dumb to evade him.

 

 ********

 

The morning of the memorial was here. The Avengers had flown in at 1:00 that morning to minimize fuss upon their return. The memorial for Jess would be shown on television, most of the news stations carrying it live from the Tower’s first floor auditorium. It was designed for public events as well as SI employee weddings (catered and individually designed _gratis_ for anyone there two years or more), team meetings, and major company announcements. Today it was tastefully arranged for about two hundred people. George admired the work that had gone into making a wide public space have subtle alcoves of privacy for those most deeply affected. The room was resplendent in Pepper’s chosen design of soft fabrics in cream offsetting the funereal black. At the front two easels stood near a dais. One held a 40x70 photo of Jess in a formal portrait taken three years ago. The other was a photo at a Security Division picnic, where DaNeesha’s new acquaintance Jason has Jess in a lazy headlock, crumbs of cornbread spewing out his mouth. Jess has barbecue sauce on his hands and he’s howling at Eddie, who had been invited to meet the team. They were the men and women who would test his wearable tech in the same manner that Jess had been the guinea pig for binders. Eddie has barbecue sauce run through the front of his hair and is elbowing Jess as their heads were obviously shaking with laughter. George is startled by the tears in his eyes. Dammit all, he was overly tired and deeply sad but he was supposed to be there for the girls today. Esther and Lidia were really quite gutted and he must be dependable.

People were arriving and beginning to sit. Jess lost his parents but George wasn’t certain when or how. His only living family was a sister who had been grateful to Pepper for planning the memorial and keeping everything under control. Grace had loved Jess but it seemed they didn’t have closely intertwined lives. Eddie said he heard she was especially concerned about having a service when they didn’t have all her brother’s remains. Thor had, very heroically if you asked George, pinpointed the location of their fallen soldier and had killed several of the beasts that wanted the body as a trophy. It was more rumor than information but nevertheless common knowledge that there would be a closed casket because Thor (it was said) had cried when he told Cap he had failed their fallen brother and arrived too late yet again. George would never need to know what that meant. The whole thing was simply too horrible.

With thirty minutes to go people were filing in and a few news stations were setting up in a press area Pepper had conjured. It was ingenious—the press could see in, but it was like they weren’t there at all unless they came out and made themselves visible. The mourners would not have their faces visible to the camera but the proceeding could be taped for the television. He was surprised to see DaNeesha scurry to his side.

“George! Oh, Georgie, we got a real emergency. Captain Rogers says you must come to the suite immediately, George. He said Eddie could seat all your friends and help with the other folks comin’ but we’re walkin’ there right now, okay?”

“Yes! Yes, of course! What on earth is happening up there? What could they possibly need me for?”

“I don’t really know. All I got was Jarvis summoning me to deliver information that Captain Rogers needed you. I even have the right for Jarv to make elevators wait!”

They flew on up to the second floor and George walked into his tailoring suite ready for absolutely anything. He was an Englishman and thus utterly unflappable.

“George, I’m really sorry about this,” Steve said from the floor.

George gaped for one long moment, his hands flapping vaguely around him.

“Mr. Jarvis,” he said, after one insufficiently bracing inhalation. “Please get me a push broom. And a very large number of dust bins.”

*

Eddie and DaNeesha had been informally greeting the mourners. Many they knew from the Tower, naturally, but some were from Jess’s personal life. They had gone drinking with Jess a handful of times, enough that his friends were easy to spot. Magdalena offered to take point on the Olds so they could mourn without feeling uncomfortable in a new place.

Then DaNeesha got called away to do something so Eduardo was flying solo. Kathleen came accompanied by Col. Rhodes. Dr. Banner conversed with Dr. Foster while Darcy was hugging everyone she knew and several people she probably didn’t. Eddie took a minute to appreciate his boss’s handiwork. Banner was clearly tired yet his suit gave him effortless vitality. This suit was uncompromising in its authority. This suit belonged to a man who made tough calls and shouldered more than was fair.

Darcy came up to wrap Eddie in his third bearhug of the day when a cameraman from MSNBC asked if she would come to the journalism area to talk about Jess and his legacy. Darcy pulsated _OHMYGODYESNOWPLEASE_ so they headed towards the growing number of news people and found a good place for her interview. Eddie noted Pepper was frowning from across the room, noticing Fox riggers had some boom mics that definitely weren’t authorized. Then a Fox reporter came in gesturing wildly while tapping her watch and snarling, “we’re on in just 15 minutes.” It was a tightly scheduled event. The pallbearers would come from the adjoining room bringing the casket up through the center. After a greeting and some words from a pastor, Steve would eulogize Jess and the Avengers would make a brief statement. The team had developed their tribute but nobody knew what to expect.

 *

“What’s happening, Jimmy? You know I could never be angry with you, son. All I want is to help you.” George had his one moment of shock when he saw the majority of his showroom in pieces. Then the moment passed and his upper lip was officially re-starched. His dear friends were in trouble and George could not abide that.

The only sound Barnes was making sounded like his quiet scream. It wasn’t more than “HHHHH” but obviously it got the idea across. George motioned for DaNeesha to come into the room. “Please get Jimmy a soda, DaNeesha, but let Captain Rogers give it to him. Then tell Eduardo I need him and bring along that PA.”

“Anything for my favorite, gorgeous pal Prince Arming! I’ll get all this rolling and take over greeting so expect Eduardo in five.”

Steve waited until DaNeesha left then pulled Buck in a hug, taking the weight of his shivering boyfriend.

“I wasn’t out here for the first minute and I’m not really sure what all happened,” he began, his face tight with familiar regret. “Rhodes brought up our dress blues and Eddie said to change here so he could verify we’re ‘suited and booted,’ whatever the hell that even means. We came down to dress about twenty minutes ago. I was in the fitting room and I thought Buck was gelling his hair. You know how he pulls it back now, but some of the front will come out, and Jess once joked about there once was a little Bucky, and he had little hairs stucky, always to the middle of his forehead, and when he was good he was very…”

“Stevie,” Bucky whispered, his voice barely forming the nickname.

“Right, sorry. I’m so sorry, Buck. George, I think once it was on the sight of the uniform terrified him because he’s not worn this kind before. Some days he can’t get his timeline right in his head so he expects his gear from the ‘40s. By the time I realized, he had ripped it to pieces while screaming and bashing into things out here. He was talking but none of it was English. I had to have Jarvis interpret while Bucky was crying and rocking. He was saying he disrespected the uniform by touching it with bloody hands.”

George had no time for crying because it simply wouldn’t help here. “I know you want to mourn Jess, Jimmy, but you don’t have to go in there in person. Jess would, we all would, understand if it’s too much. You could even use my nice TV,” he smiled, “the one that’s the size of a soccer pitch.”

Barnes only cried harder so Steve tried his best to interpret. Eddie and Daisuke slipped through the door and respectfully waited for orders.

“He really does want to be there, George. He wants to speak to Grace Byron, but more importantly the Avengers will need him. We must have the entire team for this and he knows he’s a part of that, forever. He can’t stand the thought of a uniform. He’d wear a suit except there isn’t one. The black one got shredded the day he rescued Pepper and I have no clue what to do, George.”

That was all George needed to hear. It was time to go to work. “Jimmy, I promise I’ll fix it and no one will ever know. We can make it seem like none of this has happened. Will you stand up and let me do that?”

Barnes agreed he could, so George led his team into battle.

“Jimmy, go back to my fitting room and please undress to your skivvies. Steve, go upstairs and bring me the black suit you’ve been using and any neutral shirt Jimmy wears now. Daisuke, get Mr. Jarvis to give you permission then select three of Mr. Stark’s most elegant ties. Eddie, we’re going to alter the Captain’s suit at the trouser breaks, waistline and shoulders. We’ll slightly modify the back darts for a tailored but comfortable jacket. We’re not going to fuss with current trends because those take too much energy. Our focus is classic tailoring heightened by exceptional accoutrements. Mr. Jarvis will bring up the particulars showing how the last suit was constructed. Let’s get started quickly, gentlemen. Time is not on our side.”

Eddie ran to the fitting room and waited for Barnes to undress. He asked permission to touch him then started measuring right away. Eddie called out numbers in inches, George confirmed they were working in inches. Mr. Jarvis faithfully reported every time data differed from the last suit. George asked Eddie if they should pin darts then sew them by hand on the fly. Eddie had a better idea.

“Jarv, give me a comparison matrix. Put Steve’s black suit on the left and a model of Barnes on the right. Show me each place inches differ significantly then highlight my best pinning options. Use the program I developed to structure Natasha’s trousers so they would invisibly brace her hurt knee.”

A computer model? George didn’t know how he felt about using this for his regular clientele. Bespoke tailoring was artistic and intuitive, would computers make it impersonal? As a tailor, he was skeptical. As an adoptive father, he wanted to show a video of all this on the Times Square jumbo-screens with a giant running scroll proclaiming, “This is my boy! This is MY brilliant son!”

Everyone was back now so the tailors pounced on their projects. Steve got Bucky in his black suit, whispering encouragement and silly endearments. Eddie flew to supply drawers for thread, rippers, pins and chalk. George asked Mr. Jarvis to find out Bruce’s whereabouts so Daisuke could seek permission to borrow the exquisite 1950s Ruser Pearl Diamond Platinum cufflinks George remembered seeing when they bumped into each other at a fundraiser. It had been for people injured in the Battle for New York and Bruce was thrilled to find a friend there to calm him.

George got Jimmy’s permission to touch the clothes then chalked and pinned as Eddie threaded sewing machines. Steve asked if he and Barnes could clean up the front of the suite. It was a particularly smart idea; they’d feel better if they cleaned up their mess, it kept them close in case more measuring was needed, and the cherry on the sundae was Steve reminiscing about the old days when they’d clean up their tiny apartment together. In less than fifteen minutes Barnes had fully come back to himself and relaxed.

“Eddie, I want hems for medium trouser breaks after you’ve confirmed the waist is correct. I know you prefer no break but I’m just too old to like it. Daisuke, put the links on the counter then get a shoe kit from my computer room. You can get busy buffing because details like that are essential. Jimmy, you get your shirt on while Steve brings a square for your pocket.” George had meant one from his generic stock but Steve had a better idea. He ran up to the lockers and pulled the square from inside his suit. He also grabbed one of Buck’s braces so his shoulder wouldn’t hurt later.

With twelve minutes left the suite was utter chaos. Barnes was pulling his brace on, Steve was styling his hair back, George was nipping the waist in, Eddie was ironing freshly hemmed legs and Daisuke was steaming the shirt front.

With six minutes until the memorial, Eddie, George, Barnes and Rogers left the tailoring suite without a hint of trouble. Daisuke took seven selfies in the fitting room then called his mother to brag. She was very excited for him.

 *******

With six minutes until the memorial, the entry was utter chaos. It turned out that Pepper had been overheard trying to solve problems with floral delivery. The Fox news team took advantage of her absence to set up a camera near the entry. With all the footage being pumped out live, and people mourning the sudden death of a young man, things were bound to be combustible. Darcy had smoothed over the first bumps by leaving the designated press area and directly welcoming more guests in. She swept them right past the camera and put her body between the camera and the mourners. Then the news team tried talking to people at the door and one young woman burst into tears; she’d gone to high school with Jess and took the thing quite hard. She was asked some questions about what Jess was like, who Jess had been to her, and they deliberately emphasized he/she pronouns. The tall, whippet-thin blonde reporter with very aggressive contour bronzer droned on about military policy and constantly repeated, “at the funeral of Mr. Jess Byron, who, of course, was born Jessica Byron and thought by some to still be a woman.” 

The very last straw was additional press blocking the entry of three people, while the contoured reporter/whippet was assaulting them verbally on live television.

“I see that you’re all dressed in men's suits here today, but of course, two of you are women. Are you using this memorial to further the gay agenda? Are you looking for attention in the wake of the Avengers’ defeat outside Moorad? Have the Avengers told you to come here today to prove they tolerate cross dressers?”

The three people in the spotlight had no idea what to do. Every time they tried to answer one question a dozen more lead down a path of total interview insanity. All they wanted was to share their grief with others who knew and loved Jess just like they did. The Avengers had never said anything to them. There was no political agenda. They were invited by his sister. Nobody wanted to talk about crossdressing, which was different than being transgender.

DeNeesha was wary of the voices, louder and more panicked as opportunistic reporters crowded in. With pressure mounting, tempers rising, New York stations always pushing for more…it was time to nip this shit in the bud.

“Oh, huh-uh. No way. This is not happening,” DaNeesha was slamming through the bottleneck, coming the other way. “This is not Washington press event, people. These three _human beings_ ,” she bit her words, basically daring reporters to quarrel, “were invited by the deceased’s family to join us in our time of mourning. You jackasses from the TV stations are acting like this is a Pride Parade when we’re really here to mourn a dear friend. Jess didn’t have any agenda beyond working hard and taking care of people and we don’t have an agenda either.”

Whippet Lady was obviously surprised but tried hard to make up lost ground. “Tell me your name and your job here. Are you authorized to speak for the Avengers?” Her cameraman shifted around her, so now it looked like DaNeesha was more aggressive, taking more territory than should be polite. The reporter then delivered their station’s typical pathetic cop out.

“Nobody is accusing you of political or social agendas that a majority of Americans oppose. We are simply asking the questions viewers demand of responsible journalism.”

“You wanna know who I am? My name is DaNeesha Massey and Pepper Potts has asked me to greet people coming to the service today. I’m not authorized to speak for the Avengers. I don’t speak for anybody but myself. But I’m authorized to point out basic common sense, so make sure that mic is on and homeboy here is getting my good side.” DaNeesha took one step back and focused right on the camera lens. “Here’s the recognized agenda of every single person in this building: we work together with superheroes trying to keep the world safe. I’ve never met a Stark employee who didn’t want to help. I never even met a Stark employee who didn’t want to help _too much_! Everybody here runs around 24/7 makin’ Iron Man coffee and getting Hawkeye arrows or whatever the hell they need because THEY ARE SAVING THE PLANET. People who are saving the planet don’t care if you wear a skirt today or are having surgery to remove your breasts or if you have three boyfriends and an iguana you love very, very much. We care where your head is, and we care where your heart is. Your penis AND OR your vagina ain’t anybody else’s business. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m taking my dear friends here and we’re going to cry for our colleague now, okay? Because he died saving the world and that is what we care about.”

With that she opened her arms, and the mourners walked right past the press gauntlet. Whippet Lady looked mad but nobody cared about that. Jason had thoughtfully cleared a pathway so the friends didn’t feel rushed or conspicuous. He waited for DaNeesha to pass him, then whispered in her general direction, “which side is your good side, Ms. Massey?”

“All of them,” she said slowly, twirling so he’d see for himself.

And with that, Jason was a goner.

 *

At two minutes past the hour, the mourners turned in their seats to see pallbearers bearing the casket. The pallbearers were from different parts of Jess’s life and had only met in the minutes before lifting him. In the front were Eddie and Jason, representing his time in the Tower. Dustin and Catherine were friends from high school. They walked in the center position. At the back were Jess’s closest friends from his final deployment; Alicia, about five months pregnant in Navy dress uniform, and her husband Leo, whose final tour had ended a month ago. Leo had an angry keloid scar from his right temple to down past his collar.

After the casket was placed at the front the pallbearers sat down with loved ones. They’d been instructed to bring the coffin next to the platform then walk back and make themselves comfortable. Nobody told them the plans except they would not be needed past that. Eddie took a brief look around. The whole room felt charged as the reality of the funeral set in. Everything was hushed and Eddie felt disconnected. Tony was sitting front-row center with the posture of a man who was broken. It hurt Eddie’s heart to see naked pain on his employer’s face. Pepper was sitting there quietly, shoring up Tony on her right and Grace Byron on her left. Grace was pale and perhaps not coping well; sometimes her eyes were not focusing.

He could see Thor on an aisle seat, only his size betraying his identity. His suit was exquisitely proportioned and the quality of the fabric was obvious. Jane and Darcy sat next to him holding Kleenex in their laps. Dr. Banner and Maria were two rows back from them. Next to Maria, Dr. Potter was sitting with a sad expression on her face.

As Jess’s sister walked to the dais to thank everyone for coming, Eddie’s eyes glanced towards the back. Natasha was next to Barnes, both impeccably dressed for the occasion. Eddie couldn’t believe they’d dressed Barnes so well and he’d been there while they did it. Sam and Lucky from the VA were there looking surprisingly different as they sat in their dress uniforms. Eddie was happy to think of them as sentinels on guard over Barnes and the others. Steve was up front with Clint, who sat in a slightly reclined wheelchair. The structure Eddie had sewn into Clint’s suit trousers would hold him up for several minutes but then he’d need crutches again. The wheelchair was still best but Eddie had been told that an internal brace was vital so he did the best he could. Maybe Clint was scared to feel defenseless? Eddie certainly would be.

The service paid great tribute to Jess. His sister talked about growing up and how brave she thought Jess was to join the Marines. She had funny stories about the holidays after the deployment when the family tried to adjust to Jess’s transition. There were quite a few laughing at that but Eddie could see it was mostly the personal friends. That had to be so damn scary, no wonder he’d needed tons of friends for that. People who could listen and give advice coming from similar kinds of experiences. Grace was never catty; her tone made it clear that she had idolized her brother.

The pastor spoke of heaven. Thor’s expression was heartbreaking as the pastor talked about faith in those stronger than mere mortals.

It seemed like everyone had been waiting to see what Captain America would say. Even stations that wouldn’t show the whole thing would probably have sound bites from Cap.

At last Captain Rogers was standing and beginning to read Jess’s eulogy. Eddie knew he should listen but he let his mind wander instead. What was he going to do with binder shirts they never got finished? How should he store the patterns? Jess wouldn’t be at his wedding, and Eddie would never see his. Remembering how Jarvis had sounded when a test shirt was strangling Jess and the stupid zipper protocol. Driving the Olds to celebrate birthdays, the Halloween party when he’d proposed to Mags, the barbeque the Security department would hold…things that happen annually that Jess wouldn’t see again.

Eddie knew he should listen to Steve talk. It was probably inspirational and amazing. People would say Jess was special, and so lucky, to be eulogized by Captain America. Eddie didn’t WANT to be inspired. He didn’t WANT to hear Captain America. He wanted to go out for burgers and laugh at Jess’s bad haircut story. He wanted to talk about design work, get ideas for binders that hurt less. He wanted to meet more of Jess’s friends and have them ask questions and talk and eat chicken wings. This funeral wasn’t inspirational AT ALL. The Middle East didn’t improve AT ALL. Fucking terrorists killed a whole town of people so they could trap and kill all the Avengers, too. The people from the town were still dead, the Avengers were fucked up and hurting, and the bad guys still had parts of Jess’s body. They were burying his friend in a hole today and there wasn’t even all of him to bury. Like George, and George’s parents, and Steve, and Barnes, nobody really won wars. Lost loves, lost time, lost memories, lost body parts, lost trust, lost sleep, parts of each life GONE. His friend was dead but ISIL was not and NONE OF THIS FUCKING CHANGED ANYTHING.

George took Eddie's hand, then. He said nothing at all and Eddie didn't try. Something seemed to be ending and chairs were scraping and moving. Steve was no longer talking. He stood in a parade rest until the scraping ended. After that he walked to the center and issued his only command.

“Avengers,” the Captain ordered softly, “assemble.”

Tony stood up slowly and stood behind the casket. Bruce and Thor followed, with Bruce across from Stark. Thor went up to Clint’s wheelchair and assisted him in standing. He held Clint’s body upright so the smaller man could walk. Once they reached the casket both men took the same handle; Clint’s hold was purely symbolic. Barnes helped Nat walk up the center aisle, steadying her until she made it. Her handle was opposite Clint’s so Thor was strength for them both. Finally, Barnes took the left front and Steve picked up on the right.

Then Earth’s Mightiest Heroes carried Jess towards his final resting place.

 

 


	15. Serving Slices of Cake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As George learns a brief history of the Howling Commandos' experience with Victoria sponge cake, a soldier will briefly describe the horrors his unit committed and he wonders if death is preferable.

********

 

For three months following the service, dreams were terrible for Steve. He’d dream he was back in the Arctic. He’d hear these free-falling echoes passing through the ice: _you didn’t bring back your soldier. You didn’t protect all your people. Everyone knows you were fooled by a basic ambush set-up._

Steve longed to tell Bucky how much he was hurting but that would have been even worse. Bucky had taken to his room again, saying he needed to think. Steve knew that Buck blamed himself. Bucky saw how Jess would have suffered at the hands of the terrorists. That didn’t change the fact he’d been made a weapon again and the only reason he had to was Steve’s glaring inadequacy.

One evening Steve discovered his feet were moving entirely without a planned outcome. He was too tired to question their motive so he walked until he stopped. It seemed his feet walked him to George’s apartment, so he knocked and then waited for guidance.

“Hello there, Mr. Rogers. I had been wondering when we’d have time to chat.” George stood back with his arm out and Steve walked on in towards the sofa.

“I hope it’s not a bad time, Mr. Miles. I didn’t even know I was coming here ‘til after I knocked on your door.”

“No, it’s not a bad time, Steve. Why don’t we sit on the sofa and eat snack food our mothers would frown upon?”

Steve took a seat in the corner. It felt like he wanted to sink there. Everything made him tired these days. He knew he didn’t need the sleep other people did, so why wasn’t he on the mend yet? George made effortless small talk about his favorite television drama with sexy young doctors, and new cloth Eduardo was using. Steve found it easier to work with than the conversations he normally had. It was good to ask about new Broadway plays and who wore what to awards shows. He admitted he was trying to find more things online, which prompted George to tell a story about Esther writing an email while their cat jumped on the keyboard. Easy, good. _Normal_.

George brought over selections of teas, cookies, little candies, plus a yellow cake in a container proclaiming, “Victoria Sponge.” George watched Steve touch the box with a smile that looks like sunshine.

“Sponge! I remember sponge. This is the yellow cake you’re supposed to eat with jam and some cream, right? Monty, my friend, you know, one of the Howlies? Monty loved Victoria sponge! We got ahold of some cake once, we were in France at the time. The family who lived in the house where we slept had cleared out in a hell of a hurry. Monty and Jim went through the cupboards to see what there was for supper. Monty had found this yellow cake, I remember we wondered how they’d got rations for baking. Dernier and Gabe started talking and smiling a lot so naturally we all want to know why.

“Dernier started telling a story, with Gabe translating, about a family he’d talked to from Ste Mairie du Mont. The father, who first had a sponge cake  visiting England, was off to war and his family is left behind in little apartment -like rooms beside a shop. The family is living with wife’s father, who used his farming skills as a cover to travel around for the Resistance. The story was something like this: the mother had saved up for _months_ so she could treat her son for his birthday. On the day, she baked up the birthday cake, and everyone was excited. A treat they’d been waiting for several months now, you remember how rationing could be. While she’s doing the birthday cake her father has drawn a small banner. The banner reads ‘Bon anniversaire, Gilles!’ or something close to that.

“A neighbor comes running over, bringing horrible news. A big contingent of Germans is coming through. Leaving isn’t possible so everyone must hide. Grand-père gets the mother, the mother gets the son, the son gets the baby, everybody runs. So naturally they’ve left all the food out, and that includes the cake. The son is so disappointed that he can’t help but cry. The mother is mad at herself, because we all want children to have treats sometimes, especially for a birthday.

“Hours after everything’s clear,” Steve continues, delighted, “they make their way back to their rooms. Their first impression upon entering is that kitchen took some sort of direct hit. If they had stayed where they were before the family might not have made it. Now, this is the part of the story that Gabe was smiling like crazy. I’ll never know if this happened, but I really hope it did: according to Gabe, the mother from Ste. Mairie _swears_ her father got goosebumps as he went into the kitchen because the mess looked downright awful yet nothing was truly destroyed. The chairs could easily get their legs attached again, cupboards were smashed on the back, but functional when you righted them, they had even some food left. The mother gets the kids ready for bed so Grand-père starts the clean up.  Grand-père finds the breadbox undamaged, tucked all the way back in a corner. He opens it and damn near faints because the cake is still in there!

“After we all hear that story everyone is in the mood for the cake. The story isn’t over…but we all think it is. Monty had asked Dum Dum to look in the cellar to see if he could find jam. They did have jam but I think it was blackberry. It wasn’t the right kind for Victoria cake. We didn’t know the difference though. Only Monty had eaten it before. Monty said we needed whipped cream but where in the hell would we get some? They had some cows near there but this is the middle of a war zone! Well, Monty cut up all the slices, and Dum Dum spooned on the jam. We thought it was heaven. Then Dernier tells us there’s more to the story. I’ll always remember this. Whenever I see a cake with jam and cream I’ll always think of the Howlies.”

“Mr. Jarvis,” George starts, seeing a chance, “we require some whipped cream and a selection of jams, if you please. We’re saving some for Jimmy if you’d be so kind as to invite him.”

Only three minutes later there’s a knock with a distinctive clang. George got up to answer as Steve was bringing some cutlery. Bucky was standing in the hallway laden with jam jars and bowls of various cream types. Apparently, he’d been met by a PA who’d surrendered the foodstuffs in a hurry when faced with grumpy, bed-head Winter Soldier.

Steve pushes a huge slice of cake in front of him and says, “Buck, you’re just in time. I’m telling George about the Victoria sponge cake in France and the family from Ste Mairie du Mont.”

Bucky sat shyly at the other end of the couch as George took charge of the jams and the cream containers. “I remember that story a little,” he started, “but I bet I don’t have the whole thing.” Steve and George both heard a question there but neither of them knew how to address it.

“After all the Howlies get their cake,” Steve nods to his own which has been filled with a patch’s worth of strawberry preserves, “Dernier finishes the story. Like I say, I don’t know this happened, but I really like to imagine it did. Grand-père is cleaning the kitchen and he sees the breadbox is protected. He opens it up, and, of course, the birthday cake is in there, or we wouldn’t be hearing this story! It’s what’s on top of the birthday cake that made it this legendary tale. On the other side of the banner, somebody has written in pencil. I’m sure it gets lost in the telling, but the important parts are probably the same. It says something about I’m a German kid, he’s really young, was ordered to grab what was useful and trash the rest of the place. He gets in there and sees the banner and he really feels for this kid, for two reasons. First, he doesn’t actually destroy anything because that’s wrong. Sure, you take food and fuel, but to smash a place because you can? He isn’t like that. But the second thing is, it’s his birthday tomorrow. So he’s taken one slice of cake for himself. He ends it with this heartbreaking message that his whole family has already died, and if they would please think to say a prayer for him, he’s turning 19 tomorrow and he’s certain he won’t see 20. He signs the note ‘Rudi.”

George hums thoughtfully. “I would imagine they did say a prayer for him, poor lad.”

“Oh,” Steve beams, “I think they did a great deal more than that. A couple of minutes after Dernier hears this, the mother’s family has returned from their errand. They’re all getting ready to go, and Dernier asks if they’re doing as well as could be expected, considering where they are. The mother introduces all of them, and says they couldn’t be better. Here’s her father, Jean-Bertrand, please meet her children Gilles and Beatrice, and here is her nephew from the country. He’s a simple lad, partially deaf and a hundred percent mute, so he wasn’t fit for the army. Isn’t she so lucky though, to have such great help with the kids, from her nephew Rudolf?”

George’s eyes are saucers. “Do you think…?”

Steve’s smile was like the dawn. “Hell yes, I think!”

The conversation was interrupted by what could only be described as an AI throat clearing. “Mr. Miles,” Jarvis started, “please pardon my interruption, but I believe I have found some televised footage that all of you might find quite interesting. It was produced in France in 1974 to commemorate the Allied Invasion.”

Steve and George looked at each other, curiosity uncontrollable. “Absolutely, Jarvis,” Steve said, “show us what you’ve got.”

Jarvis started the program about 20 minutes in. The show itself is in French, so Jarvis puts captions below for them.

“….and that leads us to one of the most popular tales of the French Resistance. Everybody knows the story of the Carentan Five; a small band of Resistance fighters that took out wave after wave of German intelligence. Tonight, for the very first time, we talk to the family that made it happen.”

The program moves to a montage showing footage of rubble, boots walking, a small farmhouse, a kitchen where three people were sitting. The woman, about 60, is smiling broadly as a person off camera asks about the birthday cake. Then comes some footage of actors portraying the family, dismayed by the damage but overjoyed to find the cake in the tin. The footage has a picture of the actual banner, which the family kept safe by tucking it between two ceiling rafters for the rest of the war. A man’s voice speaks the letter in German, while a French actor says it again. The original paper is a sight to behold, creased with sloppily penciled sentences faded towards the center. Jarvis provides the English while the letter appears on screen.

_Bitte verzeihen Sie die Schaden in Ihrer Küche. Man hat mich hierher geschickt, um sie zu zerstören, aber ich habe versucht, möglichst vorsichtig zu sein. Ich nehme an, daß der Sohn hier Gilles heisst. Jeder verdient Leckereien zum Geburtstag, aber vor allem Kinder. Verzeihen Sie bitte das fehlende Stück daß ich als meine eigene Leckerei genommen habe. Morgen ist mein 19. Geburtstag, und ich bezweifele jetzt daß ich meinen 20. sehe. Wenn es Ihnen in dieser Situation überhaupt möglich ist, bitte ich daß Sie für mich beten. Es bleibt mir sonst niemand, der es tun würde. Gott beschütze Ihnen immer._

_Ihr, Rudi_

_I’m sorry about the damage to your kitchen. I was sent here to destroy it but I did my best to be careful. Gilles must be your son here. Everyone should get treats for their birthday, but most especially kids. I’m sorry for the piece that’s gone, I took it for my own treat. Tomorrow I’m 19 years old. I doubt I’ll see 20. If there’s any chance you would think of it, please pray for me. I’ve no one left to do it. May God be with you always._

_Yours, Rudi_

George studiously ignored any sniffling, especially as he could see Barnes had his eyes closed. Who could tell how many Rudis he’d thought of, perhaps translating the German to himself?

Jarvis continues captioning as they see the show’s host. “So, Jean-Bertrand, please tell us what happens, the very next day on your farmland.”

“We had a meeting,” the _maquisard_ was trembling in his very advanced age. “As we’re making our way  we discover three young Germans have followed us. We captured them, if you could call it that, but nobody knew what to do with them! My fellow fighter is striping them for weapons and he tells me, ‘can you believe what these kids get in the, in their kits? When they fight for the Germans, the Germans will give them some cake!’ He holds up some crumbs of cake, wrapped in a piece of handkerchief! I can’t believe it! I ask what the soldier’s name is, and yes, it’s this boy, it’s our Rudi. Well, this is, it’s a war, you know, we had to shoot the other two. But I thought we could make do with Rudi, if he was the sort of young man that he seemed to be. And I have to tell you, he was. He learned French in four months, but had to pretend to be mute because his accent was terrible!”

At this the camera focuses on the third participant. He’s a very handsome man, blond and smiling at the camera. Below, Jarvis has translated the caption as “Rudi Scheune, Private in the Occupying German Army, noted Resistance fighter.” Rudi addresses the host now, in quiet and impeccable French.

“My father had served under _Generalfeldmarschall_ August von Mackensen. He was an Imperialist and my father would have followed him anywhere. He thought because von Mackensen could openly mock Hitler he could do it as well. One day my father was cornered by some men claiming they worked for Minister Goebbels. I never saw my father again. My mother was taken three weeks later. I was terribly scared but I didn’t know who to turn to, when nobody wants to know you because your parents are enemies of Hitler.

“My sister Renata was sent away. I was ordered to serve the Hitler Youth training camps. I was moved up to Infantry training the day I turned 15 and it was my personal hell. The thing that carried me through it was meeting another soldier who understood me, my fears. Naturally, our friendship was secret, because who admits dissent in training for the infantry?” Rudi sips some water, shaking his head at the memory.

“To survive in an army I despised, I made myself numb. Sleeping and eating were more important than carousing. I studied anatomy tirelessly in an effort to perfect painless kill shots. I strengthened my muscles in case I saw an opportunity to run and hide during a patrol. My superiors would praise my efforts because they imagined all this was an eager young man aiming to be made an officer. None of them noticed I only shot if I truly didn’t have any choice.

“I had constant night terrors that my superiors would discover the stash of letters from my friend I’d met in training. It was suicide to hold on to them because of our beliefs and who we were but they were my lifeline, my home. We tried to have a code, but codes from a teenaged boy, what is that, to an army? I sometimes thought it would be better to kill myself than hide any longer in plain sight. I wasn’t Rudi, I was their puppet. My officers pulled the trigger.”

Steve’s head whipped around to face Bucky, blurting, “it’s too much, Jarvis,” as Bucky was saying, “let it finish.” 

“Jarvis, do you know how things turned out, beyond what they’re saying here?” George inquired.

“I do, George. The baby Beatrice grew up to be a local government representative, married and had two daughters. The son Gilles was a veterinarian who wrote a book about his memories of the War. If you’ll permit me to say so, gentlemen, I believe the tale of Mr. Scheune’s life may interest you greatly.”

Bucky smiled while shrugging a shoulder. “If you’re gonna put it that way, I guess we gotta know.”

Jarvis starts playing again to catch the show’s host mid-inquiry. “Mr. Scheune, we’ve seen what you’ve accomplished. Your initiatives to bring peace to the region have been your constant crusade. Would you be willing, for the first time anywhere, to tell us what happened on the day it all started?”

‘It would be my pleasure, thank you. It was the day before my birthday and some of the people in my unit had been joking they’d find a pretty French girl for my pleasure. I was terrified that somehow they’d seen the letters in my jacket. Someone had realized, you see, the truth. So, they were taunting me, biding time before they’d kill me for sport. In my fear, I laughed too loudly then said none of us have the money to afford the pretty ones. Helmut, a man whom I had called friend, told me, ‘who pays for what we can take for free, Rudi?’ In that instant I remembered other nights I’d heard him bragging; I was very naïve, I hadn’t considered his women weren’t willing. Now, I believe many were, but even one victim is unbearable. The moment I was alone I vomited in the grass. My struggle to stay silent was ending. That night when I was sent on resupply duty I told myself it was the last time. I’d served the devil long enough and I prayed God might show me the right way to use my talents to serve only Him. The birthday cake I found for Gilles seemed like an omen. The Lord had shown me I could be reborn in His image if I went looking for His righteous path. I made sure to break things that were fixable, just enough other soldiers wouldn’t report me. That night I asked God for a pathway, and I believe He took me straight to a family who’d save me.”

The host has one more voiceover as a montage of photos appear. Rudi with Jean-Bertrand on a tractor, everyone gathered for Christmas, and Rudi holding the tin where the cake was. The episode fades to black.

Jarvis allows it to settle, then superimposes an obituary from 2003, which he translates while they look at more photos. These show his biological family in Berlin, a portrait of Rudi with Beatrice as she celebrates winning a campaign, and Rudi in his 80s, a man sitting with him. The last is of Rudi and a very handsome boy, both wearing Hitler Youth uniforms.

“After working more than forty years within the United Nations to bring peace and prosperity to Europe and beyond, Herr Scheune turned his considerable talents towards equal rights in Germany and France. In November of 2000, Herr Scheune gave his most famous speech on the steps of the Bundestag the day same-sex partnerships were legalized. He said, ‘Our struggle for equality in the eyes of our government has seen quite a victory today. I believe God is with us, as always, because we value love and democracy.’ Herr Scheune is survived by his partner of 63 years, Herr Steiner Lieber.”

All three men sat in silence, thinking of battles and the nature of heroes. At length, Bucky turned to George.

“Well, that’s a damned sight more dignified than I remembered, ‘cause all I’ve got is Monty telling me we’d never get cream for the cake, and me yelling Cap would shake the whole milch cow while I tried to pull on her titties.”

Steve’s entire body was beet red as the two of them thanked their chortling host and left for home.

*

Leisurely walking to the elevator, Steve glanced at Bucky with his best put-upon grimace.

“Buck, I can’t take you anywhere.”

“Except back to apologize,” Bucky quietly completed the ritual. He saw a softness in Steve’s eyes he’d been anxious to see lately. This time he was prepared to talk. After working so hard in front of real people to project alertness, friendliness, a sense of the old Bucky, there wasn’t much left to just _be_. Sometimes he dreams he can create a Bucky from the time before he was damaged. Then everyone else could be friends with the Bucky they wanted and he could sit in his closet and finally, finally rest.

“Steve, I know I’m not the same here. Until Jess died I hadn’t realized how different I was during the mission. I’m, I’m, disappointed,” he doesn’t think Steve wants to hear this, “but I’m pretty sure I’ll never be like the ISIL mission again. I can’t. That Bucky was a Howlie again. It’s wrong to love war, but I loved being a Howlie.”

They’re walking slowly, fingers loosely intertwined. “That French program reminded me that I’ve been thinking awhile about the 107th and that it's the only time in my life I was good at my job and I felt right doing it. I guess I want you to know I’m sorry that in the Middle East I was the Bucky you wanted but I couldn’t keep him.”

Steve stopped abruptly to face him. “Bucky. Sweetheart, that’s impossible. There is no “one Bucky” I could ever want. We’re never going to be kids again. You think I’m still the same Steve Rogers? I want whatever, _whoever_ you can give me. I felt, hell, I feel right now, that I’m not the soldier everyone thought. I fucked up so badly, Buck, you had to shoot a man I failed as a leader and friend. You say you’re not the same Bucky but I know exactly who you are; you are the Bucky who follows me around to finish the fighting I’ve started. I’ll love you forever for being that. Even if you’re a hair slower now you’re in your nineties.”

 _Oh. Oh, Stevie. Two can play at that game,_ Возлюбленный _, beloved._

‘The hell you say! I’m good at skulking around waiting to protect your self-sacrificing ass, even as I swear to god you’ll try a man’s patience, Rogers,” he shook his head mournfully, putting his back in it when he saw Steve was grinning. “I’ve decided that this proves something we keep ignoring; I belong beside you because we’re a goddamn disaster apart. So, if a man fitting my description were to slip in to sleep beside you tonight, are you gonna deck him, punk?”

“Hell, no,” Steve says as they reach their floor. “I am a lot of things, Sergeant Barnes, but I am _not_ a stupid man.”

They’ve arrived home and both men feel the anomaly before they can formulate the message. It doesn’t take very long to identify the source of confusion: a message was left under their door. It was surprising to see something so old fashioned. It was simple and that made it scary.

 _Tomorrow we’ll_ _have a confidential meeting with both of you, Eddie and DaNeesha. For security reasons, we must have it here. Do not refer to this in any of your electronic communications and do not mention the meeting aloud, even to each other. Please expect us at 2:00 pm. Yours, Pepper_

 


	16. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stark tinkers, Eddie's a tailor, Steve was a soldier...who is the spy?

********

Bucky and Steve were getting ready to host a movie party for six. Since seeing the message, they had quietly analyzed both the guest list and the timing. Steve was the one to hypothesize that Stark was prepping for a major intelligence operation. For him to do that, security was being reestablished.  Tony and Pepper needed to tell DaNeesha about the implant that turned her against them without her knowledge, to say nothing of consent. At quarter to one Bucky engaged the privacy settings he had personally installed for their apartment. He knew it was not as helpful in this situation, since the person who’s doing the spying in this case transmits while bypassing mission assist Building Jarvis. Still, at least they wouldn’t be giving away any more than necessary.

Bucky had missed DaNeesha’s bubbly nature and warm hugs after they’d deployed to support the UN. Not like a man misses a lover. Naturally it wasn’t anything like that, he was a one-woman man. Or, more accurately, a one-man man. Bucky simply adored his rabbit coffee drinking, brace-bringing, humming, smiling, gossiping Miss Sassy Massey. She could also out-snack Steve when it came to midnight burger binges and those nights were some of the happiest he’s known. Nothing against the slim elegant ladies like Pepper, she was a looker for sure, but when he had had the pick of any partner on a dance floor, he’d always looked for dames with fast feet and a little extra somethin’ to wrap his arms around later. Maybe that was why Bucky felt a bit sentimental about their friendship. He wanted her to have a great time in New York, France, anywhere she pleased. He also wanted to roll DaNeesha in cottony bubble wrap and insist she live in a blanket fort with guard dogs and a moat. That was probably a healthier urge than to rip out the throat of the random bastard that invented this implant. He bet flying Sam would be proud of how non-lethal his fort idea was.

 

 

At 1:55 Tony and Pepper knocked on the door and waited to be let in. Steve shot Bucky a darkly significant look when Tony walked in with a quick, “Hey-O! Thanks for the invite!” as he shouted instructions left, right, and center getting JARVIS set up to play the movie Ghost.

Eddie and DaNeesha knocked softly at 2:01, none of their usual exuberance in evidence. Pepper immediately walked over to greet them, smile broadly, fussing just enough to cover the inherent discomfort. She procured a bag of popcorn seemingly out of nowhere; Bucky was watching intently and still couldn’t swear on a Bible he’d seen where the hell it had come from. He sauntered over with a manly handshake for Eddie then a big hug for DaNeesha.

Throwing in an extra squeeze, Bucky lifted DaNeesha’s very-willing frame to casually toss her couch-wards. He felt accomplished when she tumbled back giggling, “Prince Arming, you scoundrel! Do that again and I’ll be forced to tell my man!” Bucky pointed a finger at her, a mockingly stern face as he remembered her new boyfriend’s expression the first time they met.

Steve chimed in, “Buck, she’s got you there. That was a wildly overprotective Shovel Talk to give a guy that kept DaNeesha’s whole family safe in France.” 

“Overprotective?" Bucky grinned. "Me? Lies! This is slander, I tell you. You’re making an enormous mountain out of a molehill. Not even a molehill. The skeletal remains of a molehill that had been built by pygmy moles. Moles so tiny they didn’t have mole basketball or mole volleyball. Their national molehill profession was being a horseracing jockey, they were such scrawny moles.”

“Bucky,” Steve started, well aware he was staring like a lovesick teenager, “you showed up at Jason’s apartment at midnight. Wearing the Soldier’s tac gear. With your eyes blacked. Wearing your mask.”

“Lots of people wear their work clothes home!” Bucky whined, “I just dropped by after the late shift to share a beer with our new friend!”

“You brought an _actual shovel, Bucky_.”

“I maintain the exchange was wrongly characterized. I won’t call it a Shovel Talk if no one does any talking.” _Since when did he need words? Words never change the outcome, right?_ _Right,_ he answered himself, _words were superfluous to the occasion, to any occasion; he is the goddamned Winter Soldier._

After this ridiculous exchange Bucky put his arm around Pepper, struck a flawless ballroom dip pose, then twirled her around the couch to land on his left. DaNeesha stayed put to his right. With a flirtatiously gentle arm around each lady and long legs sprawled like sin, he gave Tony his very best shit-eating grin and drawled, “Boys, this is my kinda cinema. Tony, you’re not gonna leave my close, personal lady friends without an ice-cold tasty beverage now, are ya?”

Eddie sat on DaNeesha’s right. Steve started passing out popcorn, then the specially-stocked Coke bottles they always had for Eddie (after they started sketching together Steve had asked Mr. Jarvis to run their beverage cooler at the proven optimal temperature for soft drinks), and Tony put his feet up in the recliner as Cap settled into a beanbag.  They watched the movie for a bit. Pepper remarked she remembered when it first came out everyone talking about the pottery wheel scene. Bucky made Steve blush a beautiful magenta musing aloud that clay would gum up his arm. Steve asked who the actor was, so Tony made grabby hands for The List until Steve handed it over so _Point Break_ could be written after _Do the Hokey Pokey._

Eventually Tony caught Bucky’s eye and nodded towards the refrigerator. Bucky thought for a split second, offered Tony iced tea, then went to go pour some for him. Tony came and sat on a footstool that put him closer to DaNeesha. Eddie angled himself a bit and pushed to the end of the sofa so DaNeesha could choose how much contact to make with him. Steve had gotten rid of the bean bag to unobtrusively clear sightlines for the door. Although none of them had planned it, Bucky sensed the shifting dynamic pushing the ladies to the center while the four men secured a perimeter. Pepper herself was angled in, her body language a study in empathy and reassurance. While Whoopi Goldberg was shouting “ditto!” at Demi Moore, DaNeesha Massey became the most impressively guarded person in all of New York City.

DaNeesha took a deep breath, then nodded firmly to herself. Bucky loved that she didn’t bother to ask why something was happening this way. She’d been a Stark PA long enough to know the only reason things were done in specific ways at Avengers Tower was that there was no better way to do them. If she was being asked to keep quiet while meeting her employers for a mid-week movie treat in Captain America’s living room, then it was obviously of paramount importance she go along with the set up. Bucky felt irrationally proud of her; he knew what it was like to be surrounded by the powerful when you’re not the one making decisions. He knew she’d come out swinging, no matter what they were about to throw at her.

Tony gave some invisible signal, then Pepper unzipped her handbag and handed DaNeesha a letter. Not even five seconds later, DaNeesha scooted herself into Eddie’s side so he could read it the same time she did. It took them less than a minute to finish.

DaNeesha looked into, _studied,_ Tony’s eyes and whispered, “is this real?”

The sympathetic look in Tony’s eyes sent Bucky’s stomach through the floorboards.

Eddie looked restless and edgy. He kept looking over at Steve, like Steve might know something to tell him. Bucky knew that’s what Eddie’s look meant because Steve was doing it to him.

DaNeesha shoved the letter towards Steve. Bucky walked over to read it with him. It detailed what they knew about the implant that had made her a one-way communication device. Unfortunately, what they didn’t know took up three quarters of the letter. Tony and Pepper (the handwriting was certainly not Tony’s) told her where the device was located, the fact that they knew almost nothing about it yet, and that they were certain she was transmitting a signal that couldn’t be jammed. Without calling them by name, it was mentioned that this was first brought to them by the Fairfax Outfit and the Outfit had never done wrong by them before. Reading finished, Bucky looked up to see DaNeesha’s eyes were red and Eddie was mindlessly stroking her back with hands that didn’t seem steady. They seemed terrified to say a single thing now that they knew someone was listening. Suddenly, DaNeesha bent over and started crying; horrible, broken wails that sounded painful to make. Eddie rubbed her back harder and whispered, “it’s okay, it’s all going to be okay, I promise.” Steve went to grab some tissues and a glass of water. It was physically painful for both of them to see their young friend in tears and be utterly powerless in the moment.

DaNeesha wiped her nose a little and looked scared to move. It must be very hard, Bucky thought, to learn everything in your entire life has been listened to for three years. Having friends over, going to dinner with Eddie and Magdalena, meeting Jason, even getting intimate with him, all of it was monitored through someone who actively sought to harm them. It looked like she didn’t want to say anything because she wasn’t sure she could keep up the pretense. Bucky suddenly remembered the times George talked about how the English simply got on with business, whatever that business was. The time to prove your worth is when everything’s falling apart. So, he did what he imagined George would do. He mentally starched his upper lip. They needed some way to explain her sudden and extreme anxiety.

“DaNeesha, I have someplace I go to when I have a panic attack. Do you need to go to your own safe space right now? Or do you want to finish the film?” He nodded when Eddie looked up at him; the two of them could explain this away then figure out the next steps.

“Bucky,” Eddie’s voice wasn’t solid but he was trying, “I’m not sure if DaNeesha can watch the rest of the movie. That stuff about hell sounds pretty brutal.” Bucky thought that was a damn smart move from the kid. He spoke up.

“Eddie, sure. Miss Sassy, I’m so sorry, honey. I didn’t think this through,” he said, hyper-aware how his voice felt and sounded now that everything seemed like a performance. “Putting this on when you’re missing Jess was such a stupid thing to do. His death hit everyone real hard and I’m a jerk. Maybe call it a day?”

DaNeesha emphatically shook her head but looked to Eddie. “Uh, actually,” Eddie thought he knew what DaNeesha needed, “I was wondering we could see the plot summary of the movie online. To avoid another, uh, panic attack. Maybe on a movie site you recommend?”

Pepper shook her head gently. Eddie nodded briefly at her: _message received, we shouldn't communicate anything regarding this situation through a computer or phone._

“DaNeesha, after my exposure to, well, you know,” Pepper made her palm glow slightly pink for effect, “I kept a list of my own triggers in an old-fashioned journal. It’s the only way to go. It’s just not the same to expose something that profound on a computer. In fact, I have a gorgeous handmade Amalfi journal I’d love to give you, DaNeesha. Maybe we could share it? Leave handwritten notes as we think of things to do so you can get back some peace of mind?”

DaNeesha nodded her understanding but closed her eyes again as she stayed huddled over. She looked like she was in pain. Eddie spoke up again.

“Um, could we tell her, just for this one movie I mean, uh, do you think we can discuss the plot?”

Tony gave a short nod. “Sure thing, kiddo. Ask away.”

“Cool. Um, for background, I mean, I know maybe some of the stuff wasn’t in the movie, but, I guess the first question is how long have other people have known, uh, the secret?”

Tony spoke up from behind his large glass of surprisingly excellent iced tea.

“That’s he’s a ghost?  Off the top of my head I’d say people have known the most basic secret at least four months? Tracking down someone who can communicate on these matters, like talking to the dead, that'd take a while even for a genius of my uncommon skill and charm.”

DaNeesha opened her eyes and whispered, “so, maybe you don’t know, but…how long has the, uh…the evil scheme been happening? Like, how long has he been _betrayed_ by someone he didn’t know was trying to hurt him?” She couldn’t keep her voice steady at the end and Bucky wanted to flatten a Hydra base with his fist.

Tony did something rather unexpected; he gave her a look of selfless empathy.

“Look, kids, this part of the film might make you real sad, because the truth of it is, uh, it was a probably a money laundering scheme or what have you from the very first day Sam walked into the job.”

DaNeesha’s gently rocked back and forth. Tony put his hand on her shoulder.

“DaNeesha, god knows I get panic attacks when I think about how much Stane stole right out from under me, the twisted crap I endured. I thought I was safe, everything seemed normal, as much like anybody thinks their life is secure and normal, right? I was having fun, discovering new stuff, after Afghanistan I couldn’t wait to start work because I was creating! I was making something _better_. We’re behind you a hundred percent, we _are_ going to pull you out of this…this anxiety attack and you will get to create and making something better and I very much hope you’ll do it here at SI. If you don’t think you can because of,” Tony blanked for a second until he found the coded language he needed, “because you think I don’t watch out for my people I’d understand. Everything, with Jess, and feelings of being angry or betrayed because I didn’t live up to my promise…I’d hate it. But god knows I’d understand it, too. But if you’ll permit me a modicum of ego,” he grinned outrageously, “I’m the best employer in the world to keep you safe from, you know, your _triggers_ , right now. Would you give me a chance to really delve into this case so we can eliminate, you know, what’s causing your anxiety?”

DaNeesha opened her eyes and nodded that she would. “But I have one other concern, Mr. Stark--”

“DaNeesha, best PA of the year, my better half adores you and we’ve shared movie popcorn, so it’s Tony or nothing, now.”

DaNeesha quit her rocking back and forth. “All right then, Nothing Now,” she murmured with a spark of life just behind her eyes. “About the movie, before I watch it again can you tell me, will this have basically a happy ending?”

Tony re-examined his iced tea, now violently disappointed it wasn’t the Long Island variety.

“Uh, I don’t know about it being all that happy. But I can honestly say that I think you’ll see it as a positive ending. The first time I watched it with Pep, it made me think about how far I’d go to see the people I care about leave pain behind and embrace the future. And Ms. Potts will surely back me up on this, I care about people besides myself, right dear?”

Pepper stood up with a fond expression on her face.“He does, in fact, care about other people. Are they bringing him coffee, are they bringing him food, are they bringing him breathtaking examples of technology no human should ever encounter…yes, Tony absolutely cares about those people. But underneath his bluster, there's more bluster, and caffeine, but also a heart, I promise you. As long as he's had coffee that day, he's a good man who cares.

"We all do, DaNeesha. In fact, this was the best place you could have been, with the best company, to have a panic attack. We all have been where you are, scared of what is inside us, and we can lead you out.” Her face showed nothing but tenderness as she laced her arm with Tony's. “Now, let’s go dear, I want to dig out that leather-covered journal. Writing down triggers is a remarkably therapeutic thing. If you’re like me, DaNeesha, you’ll save yourself some time by writing the words ‘Everything an Avenger Thinks, Does, and Says’ as your first entry.”

DaNeesha laughed as well as she could. The fact she had to try was breaking Bucky in two, goddammit.

“So, I’ll have the journal sent to your room, and maybe we could look at it together tomorrow?” Pepper, once again, steering people in the direction they needed to go, then promising she’ll join you so you have something to work towards. Bucky wondered how many people understand the incredible power she wields backstage while everyone else watches Tony show off under blinding spotlights.

Buck rolled his neck, stretched a bit, and rubbed around his shoulder where tension was making the scar tissue at the start of the Weapon tight. He shook Eddie’s hand again as a thanks for stepping up when his Miss Sassy really needed it. He gave DaNeesha a giant hug, then whispered into her ear. He saw her nod yes.

Steve and Bucky saw their guests out, then went back to the rest of their day. Bucky was ready to talk about it more.

“I hope it’s okay, I asked DaNeesha if she’d like to come over sometime this week.”

“Yeah, sure, Buck. I know this is tough for you, she’s been a terrific friend.”

“It makes me so damn mad, Stevie. I mean, I understand it’s not exactly the same as my arm. But I was a man when we went to war. A young man, but still. A man. I had training, and years under my belt to see that not everything in this world is fair, or right. She was a kid, Stevie. They used a kid who was working hard and going places. They stole her goddamned ambition, Steve. She wants to be the best, to work with the best, and it made her a target.

"Who knows what she’s transmitted over the years? Think about it! A PA, especially a hard-working friendly one, they go everywhere. If the other side is patient enough, they could piece together a ton about what we do and where we go. Those bastards listened to you tell Mr. Miles about my breakdown before Jess’s funeral. They know I lost my shit over a stupid _uniform_. I was ready to crawl into my closet for a week, babe. What the hell could they think of next? Dress up some redhead to look like my ma and watch the Winter Soldier crawl into his closet and become the world’s deadliest shoe tree? I figure we can hand write notes in my closet. Pepper said anything we type anywhere could be hacked, even if we erase it right after reading. All I want," he took a deep breath, "all I want is a place where she's protected from those assholes and almost everything we could do to help her would only endanger her because they'd know she was compromised. Even removing it could be risky.”

Steve pulled Bucky to him. "I know. It's awful, for her, but for you, too. I'm so sorry. You wanna do something? Spar, or bake?"

"I was gonna crawl into the vent and watch Clint blow tiny paper wads out of the conference room vents. Thaddeus Ross has a 4:00 with our liaison to Capitol Hill and Clint reckons he can hit Ross four times before the General loses his shit." 

"I'm happy you have a hobby, Bucky."

********

 

That night, Bucky brushed his teeth and debated whether to put on one of the sleep pants Eddie had made for him (cats wearing sombreros while shaking maracas). He was surprised to feel this wouldn’t get him what he hoped for tonight. He put the alpacas back then put on his black boxer briefs. He loved what the world had accomplished in the evolution of unmentionables. Now everything was mentionable, even advertised. He had bought these in a boutique after the ad caught his eye. The company was advertising the set he was now wearing. The set was two boxers, two briefs, and four boxer briefs. The fabric felt rich and supple when he first put them on. Bucky Barnes had the mother of all body dysmorphia issues but that stemmed from his arm and scars he had earned fighting the last 70 years. Despite these misgivings one thing he still knew is that in underwear, the only sexier thing than his ass was the package being showcased in the front. These were briefs not meant to stay on all night. He was ready to try more, to _be_ more. He wasn’t ready for all the pleasures Steve would bring him but he knew he was ready to move towards that beacon. He wanted to let his body move ahead. This body was only his and the man he loved knew that. Steve once claimed he loved Bucky for that, his independent thoughts and actions were exciting because they were uniquely him.

Yes. He was so, so eager to be more.

He walked into Steve’s room. He didn’t say anything until he told Mr. Jarvis, “G-O-T Protocol, please.” It was the signal for Mr. Jarvis to remove all audio/visual service.

He sat on the edge of the bed.

“So, punk…tell me what you think follows the really interesting parts of kissing.”


	17. Schematics

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The origin of the bug touches on history nobody is prepared to explain.

********

Bucky found himself the nexus in DaNeesha’s new life. He loved it. Sometimes that felt really good, like some of the shit he had gone through lent valuable perspective to another person modified against their will. Some days it made the past less senseless. He had a non-combative purpose now; problems to be addressed based on DaNeesha’s issues and needs. Other days there was only anger. It was sick that his experience had happened, was happening, would happen in the future even when there was evidence this was a sick and twisted idea that broke people. They wanted to break people, and he couldn’t cope with that. Those were closet days. Usually alone, although once Steve had found DaNeesha in there with him. Steve had followed the smell of lattes.

First thing every morning Bucky read any paper slipped under their apartment door. Steve took the paper to be as sacredly-held as any wartime Top Secret transmission and never moved it. It could be thoughts on procedures, questions about overcoming specific fears, maybe a page from DaNeesha’s diary if she wanted to share. She had been moved into the Tower from the apartments kept right next door. She had a studio deluxe, carefully placed across from Eddie and Magdalena but without neighbors. This was perfect for keeping up appearances; the young woman was promoted and needed to be close to her job. Her title was Stark International Textiles Liaison; between Mr. Miles, Eddie’s new division, the outside manufacturers, and so forth. Pepper had handled that with her customary finesse. The new position had been slipped in as a contact number in case journalists wanted more information on the new Wearable Tech unit Eddie had up and running again. Eddie had been at the fake movie meeting a fortnight ago because DaNeesha needed the support of a best friend, plus a direct supervisor who could give DaNeesha tasks within the department that wouldn’t spill huge secrets. That had been the idea, at least in the beginning.

DaNeesha would slip the paper under their apartment door, Bucky would address concerns or ideas, then pass a message on plain paper in a white envelope down to Pepper. Pepper could then solve problems the way only the truly rich and connected can. She joked the white paper was special because the boss has to keep everything but thumb drives had made that a much easier chore so going old school felt much more clandestine and spy-ish. Natasha taught Pepper you could find a wealth of information slipping in and out of somebody’s computer networks thus the safest place for secrets is in your head and the second-safest was hidden paper. Sometimes Bucky felt strange that the world had come full circle; his world ran on paper, then everybody moved away from it while he and Steve missed true consciousness for a lifetime’s worth of developments. Then they came back, but if everything old can be new again, paper was now the newest old way to keep secrets.

Madness.

The essential challenge for them all was figuring out what to do with the implant and the consequences of their method. Very early on a great deal of hope had been placed in what Dr. Banner called the Muffle Method. Either find a way to muffle sound so the implant couldn’t transmit at key moments, or take it out, and muffle sound around a jar so people would think the implant was still inside a body. Nobody could be sure if harm would befall someone if their implant was removed because, so far, nobody identified as an implant patient had been back for surgery in the target region. Pepper had gotten a little more information about the other people with the implants. Her theory was that women were picked because women typically talk out loud more often than men, who may choose email, a text or even body language to communicate things to familiars. It was possible they targeted women likely to limit procedures. A woman trading on Wall Street was less likely to return for several breast reconstructive procedures because missing work hours would have a significant impact on her perceived productivity for that quarter. Natasha had pointed out that most of the women targeted were from financially strapped backgrounds. Those women would be the least likely of all to jeopardize employment, as evidenced by DaNeesha being at work even when her abdomen had hurt so badly.

Right now, the team was working with DaNeesha on ways to live safely with the implant. Pepper knew DaNeesha had hoped to go into SI’s Charitable Contributions department. That wasn’t a great idea because almost of all the discussions would revolve around how much cash SI had, where it was stored, how to obtain it, where it gets funneled and who was responsible for using the donation as assigned. A bug would practically beg enemies foreign and domestic to kidnap charity workers and hold them for the ransom.  The ransom would be the ready cash the targeted organization couldn’t possibly deny they had. It was that realization that led to the creation of the new Textiles job. Pepper was keeping DaNeesha busy in the new position. There was some consolation that even as they needed to make safe work for her, it truly was _work_. Pepper knew DaNeesha would wilt quickly if left on a shelf “for her own good.” DaNeesha would do it, particularly if told other lives hung in the balance, but why waste a clever young go-getter? CEOs can do better than that, and Pepper did.

Bruce had moved towards studying how the implant worked with an eye to partially disabling it. He compared his idea to making an old-fashioned TV go fuzzy by playing with the antenna. Tony was developing nanotechnology to swim through the bloodstream and neutralize the bug by targeting its transmitters, because of course he was.

Steve and Natasha were tracing the source of the bugs. Natasha was concerned that two early source documents, apparently legitimate, were in Russian. Natasha said there were sections going back to the middle of the War but only references, not solid information. She also said she thought one paragraph had poor grammar, so it seemed probable Hydra wasn’t emptying the brain trust over this project.

After they unearthed the second page in Russian, Clint had gone down to the Fairfax Outfit to talk with their agent Ben about documents he found in the Duma. Hydra and the Soviets had devoted decades to smaller, better bugs to surveil anyone and everyone. Clint meant to stay four hours but it wound up being three days when it turned out Ben’s new wife Sveta had placed in archery at the Goodwill Games. At the end of a friendly competition Clint got an incredible look through Soviet archery sets Sveta had inherited from her mother.

Clint came back with a hundred pierogis better than Nat’s (although he’d never admit that), a genuine arrow shot in the first modern Olympic archery competition (Au Chapelet, 33 metres discipline), and a bottle of vodka made from potato peels. It was easily the second-best vacation he had ever been on (and he was including the time Fury had sent him to babysit an abandoned tropical island for a week).

Bucky wasn’t needed for any of that. None of that was what he was good with anyway. It suited him to be there only to delegate challenges then listen to Miss Sassy when she needed it. So, it was a surprise when Jarvis spoke up as the day’s second pot of coffee was being brewed.

“Sergeant, Sir requests you attend an informal meeting at his computer console near the lab. Would you be available in five minutes?”

“No, tell him twenty.”

“Very good.”

Bucky just knew he wasn’t going to get to enjoy that pot of coffee. He was right.

“Sergeant, Sir replied you have five minutes and to bring that pot of coffee with you. Shall I give a reply?”

“Nah, buddy, you don’t have the middle fingers to lift at him. I’ll be there in ten and he can deal with it.”

 

 

Eighteen minutes later because Bucky didn’t take this shit from Howard and he’d be damned if he took it from his sperm, he and the coffee were standing in front of the computer area.

“What the hell took you so long, Buckminster?”

“It took as long as I said and Buckminster Fuller was a bad ass.”

“Yes, he was, and why haven’t you poured me coffee yet?”

“Because I didn’t take this shit from Howard and I’ll be damned if I take it from his sperm.”

“Okay, gross. Just pour three quarters of that pot in this cup and let’s get to the interesting part.”

“Am I going to find it interesting, Tony?”

“Yes. Maybe overwhelmingly sad, but I don’t think so since you polish Captain America’s brass now and that seems to make you disgustingly happy.”

Tony didn't need to know how he and Steve spent their time. “I appreciate the colorful euphemism and don’t ever talk about sex with Steve again or you’ll need to sleep with both your own eyes—and one of Pepper’s—open. What am I looking at?”

“A collection of data brought forth by our lost comrade in arms, and I actually do miss Jess so no more flowery language on that front. I’ve been looking through the things he got onto the plane before, before hell on earth happened. There are a ton of files, a few paper photos, then the hard drive from one computer. That’s been the most interesting so far. I also have data that was uploaded automatically from his helmet cam but I’m not going to look through it unless we find out it’s needed for a specific reason. I don’t want to get my guts punched in the nads today, thanks all the same.”

“What do I have to do with it?”

“I think it’s possible that part of your program, either weaponized humans, or the Winter Soldier program specifically, was run through this facility.”

Bucky took a few sips of coffee. He was a little surprised, but he thought it must be something like this or Tony wouldn’t have brought him to this bank of computers. This was out of the way, private was one way to see it, but protected was another way to look at the arrangement. This was where Tony did personal business.

“Yeah, let do it. I’m gonna text Steve to cancel our lunch plans.” He did, adding that Tony had some new info on Hydra that probably pertained to him and his head was in a good place today so he was going to help where he could. His warning/apology taken care of, he sat down next to Tony.

“First things first, so far all I’ve seen are memos and data entry. If we suddenly see something gross, it wasn’t my intent, don’t murder-bot me. Now. If you look through the last fifteen years of junk, like this crap,” he pointed to assorted memos, “it’s obvious this was a low-level, or maaaybe mid-level if they tried real hard, weapon-making facility. I think they were making grenades for a long time, then people wanted them to add things into the grenades. Frankly, that’s why as absolutely shitty as that ISIL raid was, it was still, at the end of the day, a conventionally fought battle. They’re not in the big leagues yet. They’re on the level of a grenade with bioweapons in it, whereas your big-time sick fucks are trying to poison an entire water supply. You know how it is; Detroit has proof of concept _without_ _even trying_ , so everyone wants to kill the free world by fucking with our water now.”

Tony brought up the diagram they had looked at to plan the raid.

“Then I dug back before the plant was dealing with ISIL because it was fortified in a strange way.”

Bucky nodded.

“Sure. Didn’t Steve say he couldn’t get through that wall?”

“Yeah. He said it was much thicker. And I was thinking about the wiring into the coolers where we found the bodies, and the double-secure entry way with no other door out. What does that sound like to you?”

“Like people who have refrigeration units, extra-thick cells and only one way out. All right, it could be. But that was smaller than the other places and I’m certain I was never held there.”

“Okay, that was my first question,” Tony admitted. “You weren’t there, and there wasn’t much so far in the papers to suggest you’re mistaken. Did you ever get the idea there would be more soldiers? Or trying to build Winter Soldiers using different methods?”

“I think they wanted more, but I don’t know how far they got. What do you mean by different methods? I mean, falling off the train was probably struck off the qualification list.”

“I’m not sure what I mean. I’m thinking out loud. What if they could turn, say, a wrist, a leg, or even an eye robotic but you couldn’t see it? Do you know who the scientists were that were responsible for turning you into the soldier?”

“Fucking hell, you don’t ask much, do you? Well, Tony, the people who visited my worst nightmare on me over and over again, yeah. That’s not clear. You do know about the serum, obviously. And there’s that scientist that always makes me think of Harry Potter in this, the asshole--”

“Harry Potter?” Tony asked, with an expression that suggested he was weirded out more than curious. “I have no idea what that means.”

“Steve would. Hold on,” he put up one hand and pressed the contact with the other, “Steve, who’s that scient--? Yes! Not werewolf guy. Lukin. Thanks, dollface. What? No, it’s just papers. No, I’m serious, it’s not even pictures. We’re trying to find out what that building was used for before the chemical weapons and the serum came up. Steve. STEVE. I promise I’ll tell you if it’s something. Yeah. Love you too, jerk.” He hung up. Tony was staring.

“Bucky, what condiments does Steve like on a sandwich?”

“For real, Stark? Mayo and mustard. Unless it’s turkey, he doesn’t like mustard with turkey, so light mayo and melted swiss.”

“And which shoes are his favorite?”

“His black leather with the custom insole and stitched detail for dress, Hoka Ones for running, barefoot at home.”

“Barefoot?”

“Yes. It means he can feel the paint he tracks all over the goddamn carpet. What’s your point?”

“You know the man’s deli order, you know how he dresses and why, he knows you’re thinking of someone by three words of a somewhat obscure personal reference. I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but you’re married.”

“I’m pretty sure I would have remembered being illegally gay married to a national icon, Stark.”

Tony swung around in his chair while he dry-washed his face for a second. “Look. I love Pep. I love her more than I ever thought I could love someone, as evidenced by the fact I loved a lot of anyones before I got The One. But while we were gone it turned out I forgot to sign a bunch of stuff for SI and only found out about it because Dum-E tried to forge my signature, hooked himself into JARVIS to ask Pepper to retrieve it, then when he saw Pep coming he got so excited he spilled a kale smoothie all over thirty signed documents and her Escada work outfit.”

“The white pleated blouse?”

“No, the printed sheath dress,” Tony said as Bucky grimaced. He might be a hardened assassin out of his time, but he had taste, for crissakes. The Escada sheath dress was art people could walk around in. It was _flawless_.

“Tony, what does that have to do with mayonnaise?”

“Nothing, really, except I know in my heart that I haven’t asked her yet because on some level I’m not her equal. Like, I'm gonna spill kale smoothie all over her life and it pains me to say this because I’m used to being superior, dammit.”

“And self-effacing,” Bucky supplied.

“Look, I can’t tell you what I don’t know. All I’m saying is, you guys sound very married to me, and I think you can trust that. That’s all.”

Bucky knew that was a thought he’d be mulling over in his closet. He had come so far in the last six months, most days he couldn’t remember how he was at the start. When the bad times did come he could think of a few, hell, a dozen ways to cope. Now that was progress even he’d admit.  He just didn’t need to throw feelings all over the goddamned room right this second. “I’ll take the marriage comment under advisement. Let’s get serious about this chemicals building. Walk me through what you have from the Hydra years.”

Over the next hour Bucky and Tony pieced together a pretty cohesive hypothesis. As JARVIS had enlightened them, the majority of corrupt and dangerous deals in the Middle East were made in the three decades after World War II. In the late Forties everybody made land grabs while Israel’s existence was challenged. In the Fifties people argued over borders and Israel's existence was challenged. Around 1960 Turkey was ruined politically; a coup, executions and new political parties in power meant anybody could sneak across borders and establish shady things. Also, Israel's existence was challenged.

"Sweet suffering fuck, just let their people go, already," Tony muttered.

JARVIS then let them know Hydra had established facilities around Syria, Lebanon, and a dozen other places with porous borders and corrupt officials. Hydra had ostensibly set up this facility as an outpost of a Turkish University. It looked like the cover was lazily constructed. Other than a single sign in the street calling the area an extended campus of Ataturk University, there were no attempts made to obscure or camouflage the building's purpose. Most of the staff were Soviet, explained away as visiting scholars. The local help they recruited seemed to be aware of the building’s true purpose. There were requests for interpreters, translation help, and, most disturbingly, nannies.

The facility was up and running for a year, then people described as “key officials, doctors, scientists, top aides, and other honored guests” came to the building. In that time, there were references to photos taken, land surveys commissioned, and very large shipments of material but no itemized lists.

“If you think about it, those would be useless over time. Nobody wants your old requisition forms from 50 years ago,” Tony mused as he tapped a pen he never used, except as a percussive device, on the table. “I guess you’d keep a record of big shots coming in. But would you though? Who gives a damn about 1961?”

“We’ll come back to that. What else can we find out about activity in that period, Tony?”

“I think whatever they were trying to make was small. I know that doesn’t make sense right now, but hear me out. The building itself wasn’t that big, this was absolutely not a place where Hydra landed a quinjet to visit the underground Hadron Collider. The lockers outside the smaller rooms reminded me of an elementary school. The area with the conveyor belt was a simple long room with a single opening at the far end. That opening led to two smaller rooms that we never saw. If I had it to do again, I’d insist we saw those. The refrigeration rooms were more substantial, and the hook ups for that room seemed to be high quality.”

“Did you find any other useful lines of inquiry?”

“Yeah. It’s stupid but it’s stuck in my craw. Do you remember the day Natasha was making fun of the papers they found because the grammar was bad?”

“I wasn’t there but Steve mentioned it,” Bucky replied.

“I took a look through the memos of this place. Some of the people have bad writing styles, and there are a few that were written by scientific troglodytes. But in the 1960s I found several that seem to have the problem Natasha mentioned. It’s noticeable.”

“So, what?”

“So, I don’t know. I’m saying I saw them.”

“Okay. Noted. Anything else?

“Not yet. But I’d like to keep you on this project while we work on DaNeesha’s bug problem. Think we can sift through this crap and find out what Hydra wanted ISIL to do, or vice versa? Tail wagging the dog?” He yawned. “Fuck, I’m tired. Have I slept this week? Tell you what. Enough. Tell me what you want to do with this info so far, then I’ll buy you an enormous cheeseburger for lunch.”

“Sold. If I’m coming on board, I’d like to get the rest of the stuff Jess collected in here. He died helping us collect that, so we’ll examine every scrap. Even the personal camera.”

“Sir and Sergeant, if I may,” JARVIS began, “I can go through the data Corporal Byron accumulated then filter the upload for patterns, facial recognition, key words, and significant strings of numbers while you enjoy your lunch. Would that be of use?”

“JARVIS, you’re the best person I’ve ever given life to, as far as I know,” Tony said as they left the mountains of data behind and walked to the Shake Shack.

********

JARVIS, true to his word, collected all data from the Hydra outpost where young Corporal Byron lost his life. JARVIS then organized every millisecond of information and categorized it using several systems. At the end of this process, which took far less than a second, he filtered information containing numbers, names, and photos, then took steps to analyze subsets and utilize algorithms aiding pattern detection. He then took the recognized patterns and, per protocol programmed by Sir, texted relevant Stark employees he had information they may find useful and they could respond to this alert by voice, text, or e-mail within ninety days. Finally, he delivered his complete report to Sir’s phone, email address, and off-site storage facility. Having completed the tasks set by Sir, he moved on to the next item of business in his day, which was checking temperature of the refrigeration units on the 43rd floor.

 

In the tailoring suite, Mr. Miles heard his Starkphone ping acknowledgement a text was received.

 

 


	18. Facial Recognition

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When you approach a problem from two angles, you'd better be ready to deal with what joining those angles creates.

********

Steve smiled. He had often dreamed he’d come home to this someday. Of course, the original dreams could be accurately described as fantasies; coming home to Bucky, sprawled out and smiling like the Eighth Deadly Sin. Coming home to find Peggy sitting in a chemise, soft and filmy, Bucky’s head resting against her thigh as she read something delicious for the three of them. From there he could easily picture gatherings of people precious to him; the Howlies outside his tent, flopped about like bears sunning themselves. They’d munch on snacks while arguing the relative merits of radio shows. The Olds, arranged on sofas with supportive pillows to bolster them, giggling uncontrollably at some new film while Jarvis obligingly rewinds the funniest bits. Maybe someday a gaggle of kids watching baseball as Steve serves up fruit juice and carrots while Clint, Pepper, or Sam took a well-deserved vacation from parenting. Hell--- even a shy little boy in the bean bag chair, the lines of his face inherited from an egg donor. The light blue eyes under a brown mop of curls unquestionably his beautiful daddy’s.

Today, he came in from a tactics session with Nat to find Bucky on the floor, sitting up against the couch and tying tiny beads into DaNeesha’s sleep-styled hair. Magdalena was using DaNeesha’s calves as a headrest while Eddie was stretched out on the floor with his head on Magdalena’s stomach. Jason was beside them in the beanbag chair absentmindedly stroking his girlfriend’s feet. A large whiteboard was in the middle of the floor. DaNeesha didn’t like to be seen carrying it because a single hack into the Tower cameras, as unlikely as that would be, would spill her secret at once. Her friends all kept a board in their rooms and workplaces in case something private came up. Today, it appeared Eddie had doodled a man juggling chickens and someone had written _Can u still hav--._ The rest was erased.

Once, Steve had nobody but his Ma and Bucky. Not really. He sometimes had the Barnes family when they had enough money to invite him for dinner but not enough money for Bucky’s father to buy gin. His ma had accepted invitations to enjoy a cup of tea with friends or, on two memorable occasions, a suitor. Steve winced, remembering his selfish behavior. He had been nine. He didn’t want his mother to make room in her life for someone else.

_I’m so sorry, Ma. You deserved every happiness and I was selfish. I’m so sorry._

Here, now, he had colleagues and acquaintances. But he also had friends. He enjoyed drawing with Eddie. DaNeesha added an app to his phone and showed him how to make it so he could see baseball scores anytime he wanted. His team fought ferociously with him and for him, then turned right around and treated his boyfriend with kid gloves if that was what Bucky needed in that moment. Sam, Pepper, George Miles, Esther and her friends; Steve was hit by how much he had wanted to have a life where people could drop by, sit down, and trust they were welcome. Because they were. People who cornered Steve off-duty often asked if he was “freaked out” by all the plentiful, exotic foods. He would dutifully parrot that yes, he was indeed “freaked out,” (he was not. He survived WWII, the ice, and aliens. It takes a lot to “freak him out.”) then mention cell phones are miracles. They are. They are miracles because so many people would be on the other end if he only asked.

 

After the movie that left Bucky and Steve a little choked up (it was about building a baseball diamond so people you love from the past will come back), everyone chatted awhile then drifted on to the next part of the day. Bucky initiated the protocol for complete removal of Jarvis and his services. He turned to face Steve, his face looking carefully unworried.

“Grabbed lunch with Tony today. We looked through a bunch of stuff from the facility. It’s pretty interesting, I mean, I thought so.”

“It sounds good, Buck. What did you find?”

“Well,” Bucky started, and Steve could see Bucky was maneuvering towards a specific approach for his subject, “so far it raises more questions than it answers. I think the questions are starting to be the right ones. At least some of the right ones. I had a few ideas that could help us go in a better direction. But it turns out some of the biggest information needed to be processed by Jarvis. Meantime, I told DaNeesha to come find me tonight at 7:00. We’re gonna hang out, she’s teaching me about appetizers. Does that sound okay to you?”

“Sure, Buck. Whatever you want. I’ve been aching to find out what’s been happening in the world of tiny food.”

“It’s so amazing, Stevie. They eat the stuff we were angry we had to put up with! It’s not just those chicken wings, and the mini hamburgers. She says people scoop out potatoes and eat just the skins with stuff inside. Bacon in them, or cheese.”

“This century has very confused feelings about bacon. It’s terrible for you but everybody advertises how much they love it. Did I ever tell you about the time I ate a whole plate of appetizers at a benefit for vets? I thought it was a fancy plate with the bites already cut up. I don’t know who in the hell wants to eat only two bites of a flimsy taco. I was embarrassed until Pepper said the caterer wanted to use my picture as one of those online Tweet messages. I guess eating 60 tacos in one go made the guy feel pretty good about his cooking,” Steve shook his head, trailing off slightly the wider Bucky grinned.

“Gotta big mouth, Stevie?” Bucky came up and gently leaned in. Steve wanted to pull him in, trace the outline of Bucky’s lips with his tongue. Kissing was now something they could do easily. Very easily, after nights when they spent hours tracing each other first with fingers, then lips.

“Sirs, I beg your pardon for interrupting your Westeros Protocol. Sir has asked to see you in his lab immediately.” Jarvis really did sound apologetic, something Steve wondered about each time it happened. How can an AI have feelings, and were they part of Tony’s design?

Steve’s short-lived contentment slipped right off his body and headed for the drain he suddenly imagined to be under his feet. As necessary as the last lab encounter had been, nobody wanted to make a habit of it.

“Sure,” he replied. “What should we bring?”

“You do not need anything at this time, Captain.” Jarvis signed off and Steve focused his concern on Bucky.

“Do you need more comfortable clothing?”

“Nah, I’m squared away,” Bucky grinned as he flipped the waistband of the jeans to reveal the sheath inside. “You’re never fully dressed without a knife, Stevie.”

********

Tony was sitting in front of his lab computers, two screens running images as JARVIS was pulling information. The screen directly in front of him showed Tina adjusting her glasses and reading something on a tablet.

“Stark Contrast, I got the data package you forwarded. Geoff and I ran through all of it. This is the most significant finding that corroborates your AI’s findings,” she said, as suddenly her image was sent to the screen within screen and Tony was looking at an old intake form. He didn’t need the language to feel sick by the black eagle letterhead.

“When you came to us the first time, right after you downloaded the images from Barnes, I told you it would take a little while to sift through German paperwork to find concentration camp records. There were 287 women who fit the parameters. The accent and the timing bothered you, didn’t it?”

Tony closed his eyes and rubbed them, then stopped when he remembered he was feeling less than cosmetically immortal, wrinkle-around-the-eye-wise. He nodded. “I didn’t want to say anything, but it seemed a little too coincidental that George’s dad survived the camps then ended up in another damn camp before he met the Six Million Ruble Man.”

“You were right. Your dad had recruited Irena Szymański through her mentor at Jagiellonian University. Knowing that let me do some tracking on her movements throughout the war. I’m sending you the sum of the findings right now.”

“Am I going to enjoy this, Tina?”

Her round face was unexpectedly expressive. That seemed like a bad thing.

“I’m sorry. None of you are going to like this very much.”

Tony nodded and pressed his lips together for a second. “Well, tell Kathleen ‘howdy.’ I’ll bring you all up for a dinner party when life stops being a cascading stream of painful crap.”

“You could just say you never want to see me again, Tone Loc. Take care of yourself. Fairfax out.”

********

Tony was waiting for them when they arrived. Bucky was surprised to see some of the equipment from last time. He felt nauseated. He realized this meeting must be urgent but that didn’t change that he had been denied the opportunity to use the hard-won coping strategies a therapist had suggested. Bucky didn’t have time to prepare; no visualization, no deep breathing cycles, nothing. He felt wild aggression rising out of nowhere. He wanted to pull Steve behind him, bare his teeth to Tony until the other man submitted, then retreat to gently nose at Steve’s neck until the imagined stench of his own fear abated.

Sometimes Bucky was more animal than he cared to admit. He wondered if they were all that way.

He and Steve dropped into chairs and were saved from attempting chit chat by a noise coming from the door opposite the entrance they had used. Everyone looked surprised to see Eddie come through the other door. Eddie himself looked shocked for a second, then made a vague motion that seemed to encompass _my dad is here, were we gonna talk, that was this thing, yeah_? They all made the motion that probably meant yes. George and Eddie came into the room, nodding at the other gentlemen as they entered. Mr. Miles was dressed casually, but his handkerchief was an older one. A used one. Things were unsettled.

Tony got everybody seated, then tapped his fingers on the side of his chair and spoke with a levity so forced it actually seemed to help.

“So, uh, earlier today, Bucky Charms and I were looking through stuff pulled out of the weapons site. We asked JARV to look through the images and see if he could find patterns or data we were missing. It turns out there was something. JARVIS notified you, George, and I think people were a little surprised at this particular summons so let’s get down to brass tacks, or, uh, platinum tacks if I have them. I’ll let my trusty sidekick start.”

The screen that had once shown Bucky’s unbridled recollections lit up. Steve looked somewhat nervous, and Bucky was happy to grab his hand. The relief in doing so openly was still a pretty big rush. Eddie and Mr. Miles sat forward expectantly. JARVIS was speaking.

“Sir asked me to run through all of the data collected by Corporal Byron, and a significant pattern emerged from three matrices. I discovered that Corporal Byron, without his knowledge, encountered a photograph that may be of considerable importance to you. Most unexpectedly, the same isolated data pinged an old program Sir had created to monitor Mr. Miles. Once Sir and I verified the connection, invitations were extended immediately so that you both may see the material.”

Tony shifted in his seat. “George, I forgot Jarv would text you. The function to inform the head of department is for situations like Eyes and Ears uncovering information whole departments should log on to inspect. It’s for work, but I forgot your whole department was you and Eddie so you got a work summons for what we know is actually a personal matter. I should have called, or, hell. Knocked. Should have knocked. Maybe ordered some new pants first in an awful, made-up color like ‘aubergine.’ Or a tux. A velvet tux…should have eased into this, was my point. My apologies.”

The men all glanced at each other. Tony had spoken in a subdued tone. Bucky wondered if he even realized he talked to George with a metric ton of compassion. He also wondered if George knew that.

“So,” Tony exhaled, “while Optimus Crime and I had burgers earlier JARVIS flagged the referenced image then sent me all the info he had. JARVIS is programmed to run any anomaly through global search parameters to see if anyone out there knows something we don’t. Nobody is allowed to know something I don’t. Long story shortish, the three key areas he referenced are facial recognition, the aging program I helped Interpol create for missing children, and a census index.

“It’s important for you to know that the stuff we’re gonna see, it was old enough and big enough that I asked the Fairfax Outfit to corroborate it before bringing it to you. Tina’s team had been working this case from a different angle. Well, today, those angles joined.” The large screen now showed the start of some footage. “This is a piece of footage from the bodycam Jess wore while cleaning out the office. What you’re looking for is the woman standing on the right of the second photo.”

The lights dimmed. Bucky felt like one of those coiled snakes in a practical joke can. As soon as he saw whatever the hell Tony was on about, he might shoot, unraveled, right out of the room and away from all of this.

The image began with a brief sensation of movement in shadows. That was the bodycam adjusting to the indoor lighting. The picture improved. Bits of purple silly string were stuck to the floor, desks and chairs. Movement, heavy breathing; Jess, grabbing all the info he could on his way back to the plane. Cussing up a storm under his breath every time an explosion could be heard from outside. There was an obvious moment where Jess focused the bodycam on things he would not be removing. The footage paused where JARVIS magnified the key data. It was a grainy color photo of some people wearing lab coats. A line of men and a single woman, hair styled to look like short feathers in a nod to 70’s style. The woman had stern eyes, and the fleshy jowls of middle age. Bucky felt his stomach flip. Something. She was…someone. Something to him.

The penny dropped.

“George,” he heard somebody say. He realized it was his own voice but he felt like it was talking without permission so he shut up and turned around. Mr. Miles looked at him, then Tony.

“What was the cross-referenced part? My father never left Russia. Jimmy, what was your part? Did you see someone you know? Tony?”

Tony tapped his chair a few more times, choosing his words. In that moment Bucky understood an essential truth:

Tony Stark is the bearer of bad news on behalf of the world’s least cost-efficient charity.

Stark International had a division to spread charitable donations to over 900 carefully cultivated charities. Bucky knew all about it because he remembered how much his Miss Sassy wanted that. That was separate from a discussion like this. Tony spent a lot of his own time, not to mention untold millions, to give their frayed little family closure that _only_ money can buy. If it weren’t for him, Bucky might still be a braindead mess, walking through tailoring suites at midnight looking for signs of Hydra. Steve would be an automaton, delivering pseudo-patriotic justice then destroying punching bags so he wouldn’t cry. Mr. Miles would never have known where he came from. Eddie wouldn’t have seen where his agile, creative mind might be best used. As he put together why George was here, Bucky tabulated the cost of the mission to the weapons facility, the cost of the tech to get footage, the price of the entire Fairfax Outfit looking into the past. The truths uncovered this evening were well beyond a 100-million-dollar price tag. Bucky resolved then to make it easier for the Stark kid by taking over the story. He could ease up on Tony, Tony could go easier on George, who could be there for Eddie, who adored Steve. If one hurt, they all would.

 _Good god_ , he thought, _feelings are the ultimate clusterfuck._ He took a breath to ground himself, squeezed Steve’s hand for luck, then jumped.

“George, what Tony is getting at is that I was called here because the woman in the photo is from Department X. She was one of the people who conceived and designed the Winter Soldier. I think we should do this right now, before this goes on much longer. Jarvis, please bring up the sequence of flashbacks Tony uploaded from my arm.”

When the first image came up Bucky turned to face George.

“George, my memories don’t always make sense to me, some of them feel like bad dreams that aren’t connected to anything else. I don’t know what each of them means until I get a memory or cue that sort of, unlocks it. Like we did last time. We unlocked the sequence enough for me to put together who your father was. While we were fighting ISIL we met a woman named Dr. Potter. Jarvis, please put the memories with the Mexican flag up.”

The pictures cycled through much more slowly than they had experienced them back when Esther had told them about the port in Bucky’s arm.

“George, I didn’t know who this was. Even when I met Dr. Potter I kept thinking she might be an old girlfriend,” he nodded sheepishly at Steve, “until she helped me create enough space for the memories to drop. She was my first failed mission.

“This is going to be terrible, and I’m sorry. But the picture from the weapons facility was linked to me because I knew that woman. The thing is…. you do too, George. I’m sorry.”

With that, the next picture in Bucky’s flashback sequence appeared. Black and white; the earliest days of the Winter Soldier. Three men and one woman. A surgical lamp above them, their features calculating and lips pursed. Bucky had no conscious memory of this split second in time. He couldn’t remember if it was surgery, recalibration, tests. He couldn’t remember if he was crying, scared, lonely, in pain, although he almost certainly was. But he absolutely remembered her. The stiff, cold, sneering _bitch_ who ended up in a Hydra outpost 1,900 miles south of Moscow got her start as his first engineer, his first maker. The three men knew _what_ they wanted, but she was the one who figured out _how_. This woman made him the Winter Soldier.

This woman was George’s mother.

George said nothing at all as he fell forward to the ground.

 

Eddie insisted, and Steve agreed, that Mr. Miles be taken to the medical wing immediately. Unlike the previous times George experienced a panic attack, they couldn’t seem to get him grounded. Having Eddie rubbing his back and speaking softly only seemed to make things worse. Eddie looked up with his eyes full of tears, asking Steve to take him rather than wait for a stretcher. Tony had the elevators and hallways cleared so George would not feel embarrassed to be carried up to the med wing. Steve, knowing exactly when a man needs to salvage dignity, contrived an amazing arm hold that made it appear George was walking closely beside him. It was very hard to tell George, although upright, was so thoroughly supported his feet didn’t make meaningful contact with the ground.

After Eddie watched a staff nurse get his father into a bed to receive an IV and light sedative, he asked if Bucky and Tony were sure. That he admired Jess’s dedication, to so carefully record all that data even though his life was in danger, but could there have been more? Something else that would show it was some other, unknown woman? Steve remarked Eddie must be badly surprised, seeing as how they had just revealed his father’s biological mother was evil personified. Her intent and methods no better than Hitler himself, Steve said.

Bucky wondered what that makes him, then, to be built by a woman no better than Hitler himself.

Tony got the four of them seated in a small alcove across the hall and then answered Eddie. “The Outfit’s primary European languages expert, Tina, confirmed my original suspicion. That part went way back, kid, back before we knew anything about the Middle East. You might remember that during the lab session we sent several recordings to the Outfit for analysis. I wanted to know if there were anomalies either in the pictures themselves or the recorded language. There were some accent and grammar patterns that were not consistent with everyone we heard in the recording being native Russian speakers. In fact, back then, the Outfit told me they heard a woman present in design meetings who spoke Russian fluently but with an education in Poland, probably Krakow. George’s biological mother was educated at the university there. Then we looked at papers written in the weapon facility. There were some memos that had unusual grammatical errors. Natasha said it looked like a person who spoke Russian but didn’t grow up writing it. So that held together, too, because Tina confirmed the mistakes in the memos were of syntax pattern and irregular verb usage that a Czech person would likely make. The final piece is that JARVIS put it together with facial recognition, then checked it against census records. Of course, census records during the war are imperfect. But at the least we know Irena Szymański was not reported dead. Neither was the senior Szymański.”

“Damn. That sounds, that seems pretty solid. We know Jerzy was held there against his will. What if she was a prisoner, too?” Eddie asked.

Tony sighed, “maybe? There’s still a bunch to unravel. I’m sorry. I handled this poorly. A word with George in private might have made a difference.”

Eddie shook his head. “Dad loves Barnes like another son. Knowing all of this at the same time might have been the best way. Honestly, Mr… Tony. I think so, anyway. Ugh. This might be the first time in my whole life when I mean I can’t…anything. I can’t even. Seriously. I’m gonna go back to his room, see how he’s holding up.” With that, Eddie crossed the hall and opened the door.

Bucky closed his eyes for a minute, unwilling to verbalize the sinkhole rapidly forming in his brain. Those other flashes—who could say what they were? When he might recover the rest of the memory that was tied to the Polaroid his eyes snapped without his knowledge? It was truly without his knowledge; he wasn’t proficient using his camera function voluntarily until the mid-Nineties. Or maybe he was. Cryo wasn’t the best calendar. He thought his memories were an extension of serum enhancements and brain wipes. He wasn’t aware how tightly he was holding on to the chair’s armrests until his metal hand ( _Hydra’s metal hand_ , his traitorous psyche decided to contribute. Bastard.) bent the frame. He was getting smaller. He was getting much smaller. He couldn’t even warn the others the Soldier was slipping into the driver’s seat.

He opened his eyes a moment later to the sound of raspy, labored breathing. The Soldier automatically considered how to turn this building inside out looking for the narrow frame of an angry sunbeam he recalled as his first handler. His subconscious insisted that narrow frame was obsolete. It then insisted the man coughing was an elderly man he identified as a friendly. Who was…

Four things happened at the same time:

Eddie flung open the door of George’s convalescence room, sobbing and shouting “NO. It does matter! If blood makes family then you’re not my dad and marriage won’t matter and I’ll be alone forever, Dad, and you can go to hell for even thinking that.”

Steve automatically turned on his Captain America crowd control voice, booming “this has been a terrible shock and we need each other right now. Bucky needs you right now! He’d never blame a son because the woman who gave birth to him was a Hydra engineer!”

Bucky startled awake screaming Russian like he was dying.

and

DaNeesha opened the door singing, “Prince Arming, are we playing frickin’ hide and seek? You don’t keep a lady waiting on mozzarella sticks, baby!”

If any three of them had happened it would have meant very little.

But all four happened.

And Bucky watched in horror as DaNeesha wrapped her arms around herself, knowing someone out there just obtained more dangerous leverage than any of them could fathom.

 


	19. The Next to Last Thing to Do

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everybody has so many decisions to make it will take two chapters instead of the expected solo chapter, and Esther is amazing.

_********_

_Good evening. For those of you joining us here at the top of the hour, our lead story tonight is the shocking allegation that Tony Stark and the Avengers have been accused of hiding the son of a Nazi collaborator. Allegations are surfacing tonight that Tony Stark employs the man you see in this photo, George Miles, an Englishman who immigrated to New York more than 50 years ago. Miles was the only child of Polish citizens Irena Szymański and her husband Jerzy, seen here in a photo taken in 1938. Sources say that Mrs. Szymański was linked to Howard Stark, Tony Stark’s father. Did Stark hire Mr. Miles, whose real name is Jerzy Szymański junior, out of loyalty to Miles’s mother? Is it true she was an engineer for the Third Reich who became a top-ranked Soviet scientist tasked with destroying the West? For more on this disturbing story, we go to our reporter Christine Everhart, standing outside Avengers Tower. Christine, you’ve been reporting on Stark International and the Avengers Initiative since your days at Vanity Fair. What can you tell us so far?_

*

Every television in the Tower had been playing some version of that speech during the nightly news. Most of them didn’t even hear it except as white noise. Steve was waiting at the door of the building, conscious that every second he was there the paparazzi flashes were lighting him up like Ebbets Field at night. As soon as the car pulled up, the driver came around and Steve rushed out to meet him. Together they hustled Esther into the building without incident.

“Esther, you should have let him bring you in through the basement,” Steve said, putting a warm hand on her shoulder as they walked to the elevator.

“I know, but I didn’t do it that way before. Did you know three different news programs said George was in hiding here? That he’s lying that George is his name now? Like that man ever kept a secret in his entire life. He has business cards with his address in the Tower, for crying out loud! How are we hiding anything? I’m sure as hell not hiding now, not with those vultures picking apart my family,” she scowled as she patted the door of the elevator and added, “Mr. Jarvis, take me to George, please.”

“It would be my pleasure, Ms. Berman. May I enquire as to the health of your cat Eleanor?”

“She’s as prickly and ridiculous as always, thank you for asking, Mr. Jarvis.”

“I’m happy to hear it, Ms. Berman. We have reached the medical floors; George’s room will be on your left. He is expecting you. Please let me know if I can be of further assistance.”

“Thanks, Jarvis,” Steve said, doing the odd head tilt most people still did, looking up as though the AI lived in the ceiling. “Esther, it’s only been a few days, I don’t want you to be surprised—”

“Nonsense, Steve. So long as the man is breathing, that’s all I’m expecting. Everything else can be fixed.”

Steve took in a deep breath. Good. That was…good. Privately, he had been worried. Very worried, if pressed for the truth. He had never seen George looking this fragile. Even when he came back to the Tower after reading the file on his family’s history he had looked like a man temporary robbed of his usual vitality. Now, he looked like the vitality wasn’t coming back.

They reached the door to George’s room. Steve knocked and waited until Esther had gone in, then bid them both a pleasant visit. George was sitting up, wearing the maroon and ivory striped pajamas Tony had delivered that morning from Nordstrom’s. The first 36 hours Mr. Miles had lain in bed wearing the gown the medical staff had provided. Like everything else Tony provided, it had been the best quality of gown to be found, but that wasn’t the point.

The point was that the tailor wasn’t changing into his own impeccable clothing. More than his pallor, more than the fact he seemed half his size overnight, more even than Eddie not visiting him; George didn’t notice he wasn’t dressed and Steve couldn’t bear to think what that might portend.

He went in, shook George’s hand, and said, “Mr. Miles, if you make this wonderful woman cry a single tear, I’ll be forced to withdraw your tea and scone privileges. Now, you two get nice and settled in, and Jarvis is set to show you the Downton Abbey Christmas special after you’ve had a good chat.” He then kissed Esther’s cheek and made himself scarce.

That duty dispatched, he needed to get back to the Faraday Cage Inn.

 

The Faraday Cage Inn was at the other end of the medical floor. It wasn’t really a Faraday Cage, but rather a very elaborate set up involving an operating room, recovery suite, and two patient rooms that had been completely enclosed in a material Stark Engineering called Copp-est; _when copp-er isn’t good enough, demand copp-est._

The new wing made certain that DaNeesha’s implant couldn’t transmit a single sound to the outside world. Since they were no longer worried about making it seem as though her life was moving on as usual, DaNeesha stayed in the Cage Inn 24/7. A fulltime rota of Stark’s best and brightest were on hand to manage difficult questions and concerns. Today there would be a meeting to finalize plans to remove the implant. Because absolutely nothing in this world can be easy, it had come to light that this was no mere bug stuck inside a person’s anatomy. There were bigger issues than that. Much bigger issues.

From the moment everyone realized what had happened, the whole building threw themselves into overdrive to protect their own from publicized suffering or attack. Eyes and Ears were covering every major media outlet in the world, knowing that they’d only have one shot to see the story break for the first time. They hoped the first outlet to reveal the shocking news of the Winter Soldier’s origins might provide a clue as to how their PA had been targeted and who had made it happen. Pepper and the legal eagles vowed they were going to punish anyone and everyone responsible for letting this device be placed during a legitimate surgery in one of the best hospitals in New York City. Maria quietly manipulated some back channels around town so that DaNeesha’s mother was informed she was being promoted at work; a position that came with a significant raise and, more importantly, discreet around the clock protection by highly qualified bodyguards.

Bruce and Tony had been conferring with surgeons on how to safely remove the implant without fully understanding how the technology worked to begin with. Nat had been beyond furious that their team, their _friend,_ had been compromised. She and Clint disappeared three hours after it happened and Steve was certain they wouldn’t return until somebody had paid dearly for this violation.

His head full of memories from that awful night, Steve came around the corner to the conference area outside of DaNeesha’s living space. He thought Bucky would be there, they were going to meet here. Jason and Eddie were sitting and watching a video on YouTube. Steve looked over Jason’s shoulder and saw they were watching what appeared to be a cooking show for tiny animals. A miniature bun was getting a tiny hamburger on it, then tiny fries appeared and a gerbil? Hamster? Some rodent was enjoying the tiny food. It was cute, but Steve was certain if he had seen one in his pre-war apartment they would have taken turns waiting for it to appear again so they could clobber it with the skillet.

Both young men looked poorly. Eddie hadn’t really smiled since George had made the comment about blood and family ties. Jason reeked of smoke, a habit he had quit three years ago, he said. Then he’d excuse himself and step out for another smoke. Steve was worried enough that he invited Flying Sam and Lucky to join them for their weekly burgers and shakes night. Eddie didn’t even touch his shake, and the kitchen had made it special for him, blending raspberries into a hot fudge flavored malt. Steve had offered Jason use of his personal punching bags. Twice after Jason had been there Steve came down to find the bag was spattered with enough blood it made him cringe.

Steve shook his head and came back to the immediate issues at hand. The suite was designed to bring every creature comfort to someone who couldn’t leave. Along the wall there was an array of equipment and electronics. A 55-inch flat screen, Dolby surround sound speakers that seemed to be improved with a weird silver net, a stack of board games and puzzles, four gaming consoles, and (inexplicably, to Steve’s mind) a Sno-Cone ice shaver with 14 flavors of syrup including Hulk Green Tea, White Russian, Iron Mango, Star Spangled Banana, Purple Cowl, and “the Supersoldier.”

The Supersoldier was pancake syrup kept in the freezer because Tony is an ass.

Tony and Bruce wandered in from the hall. Bruce knocked on the door in the back of the room, then went in. A minute later he reappeared, rubbing his hands and saying, “DaNeesha will be out in a moment. She’s in great spirits, honestly, just…be gentle. I’m afraid we’ve come with some, uh, upsetting news.”

Her door opened then and she came in to greet them. DaNeesha came in wearing pink plaid flannel pants cuffed to show white furry slippers. Her hair was up in puffy little balls all over her head. She looked smaller than Steve had remembered. Then—

“Please tell me that’s not that t-shirt that you could not possibly appear to be in right now?”

“Hi, Tony, yeah, I feel like digitally remastered death right now but let’s make it about our petty sartorial squabbles, I feel good taking things in that direction.” With that, DaNeesha scowled, crunching her eyebrows into the center of her face until finally, Tony laughed with a breathless “ _wow_.” Then gestured for her to sit down while he made her some hot tea.

Another face popped out from behind the doorjamb of the patient’s room. “I got it for her. Isn’t it great?” Bucky’s face was beaming under a bit of curly hair going wild. “I asked Jarvis to order it.”

Steve was looking at the shirt without understanding why this was happening.

Bucky wandered in and clapped his hand on Steve’s shoulder while he whispered in his ear. “They did this skit on a comedy show where they make fun of obnoxious people and now everyone is wearing these Stank Industry t-shirts. I got one for you, too!”

Steve turned his head a bit. “If they make fun of obnoxious people where’s the t-shirt they did for you?”

Bucky cuffed him on the shoulder. “I’ll show you obnoxious, Captain. I submitted my own design for advertising we're obnoxious! It's a giant picture of your face."

With that, everybody settled in and Bruce carefully pulled up a chair so that he was the right distance for giving bad news; personal, but not getting in Jason or Eddie’s way. He glanced up at Tony and lifted his eyebrows. Tony perched on the back of a chair and Steve thought, _for once, Tony seems to value how to do this with care instead of speed._ Bruce turned back around to face DaNeesha.

“DaNeesha, when we started planning this meeting, we were hoping to tell you how we could remove the implant without compromising your health or emotional wellbeing. We got as far as assessing the materials, placement, and locating the active power source. We found two things we didn’t expect to find, and that doesn’t factor in the news we’ve received this morning. If you’d like to call off this meeting and discuss this privately we will certainly clear the room.” He waited, then moved on once she had shaken her head in a small but definitive manner. “Tony, how about we show the imaging side by side?” Tony nodded then four different scan images appeared on the TV.

“DaNeesha,” Tony began, “you know JARVIS does a few passive scans periodically. Those scans are HIPPA protected and even I don’t get to see them unless there are extreme circumstances that demand I be looped in. It’s meant to prevent seriously bodily harm to person or persons with in SI. You told me that he found your surgical problem as you were leaving your Stark PA interview. You’re the only one supposed to see that or hear that information. But, well, okay, we all know the score now, though, and are rabidly Team Massey so with your permission can I show the next scan?”

Steve was aware his own face had relaxed into something a little like pleasantly surprised. Tony was easing into each topic with an air of teambuilding. Huh. DaNeesha’s smile showed she noticed, too.

“Of course you can. I bet my insides are hella fine,” DaNeesha snapped as she burrowed into Jason’s side. He put his chin on the top of her head and laughed a bit with her. Steve looked at their easy intimacy, loving touches light and airy.

He wondered if he had ever touched somebody that way. The question itself made his heart hurt a little. He glanced at Bucky, who was carefully studying the scans on the screen.

Bruce smiled a bit then used a little laser light to circle the screen where there was a small, y-shaped device more opaque than the surrounding tissue. “Okay. If you look at this middle shape, that’s your uterus, DaNeesha,” he paused as Jason mouthed, “ _best looking uterus in Manhattan._ ” Bruce seemed to find that touching, a glint in his eye while he traced other parts shown in the picture. “DaNeesha, there are the ovaries, your bladder is tucked under here, and so on. When your surgery was performed they took a flexible implant originally designed for birth control and placed it here,” he pointed to the left side of the scan, “in the fallopian tube. I believe they chose this spot because any residual discomfort would be brushed off as the normal pain you’d have following removal of ovarian cysts. But, well, there’s a chance that the tube could be damaged. We have no reason to think it will be. But I want to go on record saying that if they caused a single second of a fertility challenge should you want to be pregnant, well, I, hm.” He inhaled deliberately and Steve was certain Tony had moved a quarter of a centimeter closer to the younger employees, then Bruce shook his head and mumbled, “not gonna go green, Tony. It’s fine. What I was trying to say is that I am documenting all of this with an eye towards that issue so that you may receive the best possible care down the line. That might be medical care, but it could be legal. If someone needs to testify as to damage, please know I’m there for you should you need, or, uh, or want my help. That’s all.”

DaNeesha and Jason looked at each other for a second but didn’t say anything aloud. They just turned back to the screen and nodded to keep going. Bruce nodded at them and deliberately changed the course of his lecture.

“Obviously, the modifications here are disturbingly high quality. Hearing DaNeesha’s own voice may not be too hard, but knowing half of a conversation with a PA would not usually yield enough actionable intelligence. That means you’d need at least enough power to catch the person closest to your implant. But in a target-rich environment like this tower, if you could hear even a mid-level meeting you could gather updates about scientific advances, a financial report, advice from our legal department, even hear personal information you could use against an employee. The number of fronts you could attack would be limited only by how far this mic implant reached. The point is, to create something this advanced would be really hard. If you think about the noises that happen in a human body; heartbeat, bowels and gas and whatnot—”

“Excuse me,” DaNeesha exclaimed in mock offense, “boys might be all nasty but I toot potpourri!” Steve found himself grinning and enjoying a moment of real, unconditional fondness. He could see why Bucky was frantic to preserve his friend’s cheerful nature. Bucky didn’t know many people who were this lighthearted. Steve tuned back in as Bruce kept talking through a gentle smile.

“I never meant to suggest differently, I’m sure. My point was that you need minds and money to make something like this. If you factor in the reach it requires to be in the hospitals you want, get the info sorted and used the way you want, all of this suggests a major player. To create this and then get it implanted even once, not to mention however many they have around the world, I don’t want to say conclusively it’s Hydra, but I can’t picture who else has the money and pull, except maybe our own government.”

Eddie’s head snapped up. “Are we thinking that? Do we do that?”

Steve exclaimed, “I should hope not!” as Stark was sneering, “buckle up, Buttercup. This is nothing for Uncle Sam.”

Bruce glared at Tony. Then he took a breath and made an effort to address the room, rather than the patient.

“The news we received this morning means if it is our government, we might as well say Hydra is running for Congress. At 7:30 we got a call from the Fairfax Outfit. Tina says that one of the Outfit has a job on Capitol Hill and overheard that a staffer connected to Department of Defense died late last night. The staffer was the young woman who had sinus surgery and received an implant.”

Steve felt rather than heard Bucky’s sharp intake but he didn’t know what it meant.

“Tony, Bruce, what do you make of this?” Steve then turned to Bucky and rubbed his back with a practiced motion. “Do you think she was murdered?”

Bruce looked over and ceded the topic to Tony. “This part is more you than me, I think.”

Tony nodded. “This has at least three angles, all of them craptastic. One thing we need,” he said, nodding at DaNeesha, “is in-depth research on what info this woman on Capitol Hill would have been privy to and who could stand to benefit from hearing the conversations. I’m going to start with her political associates as soon as we adjourn here, Jarv is already running statistics and collating info we get from social media. DaNeesha, we need you to do the same thing you did for Nat during our UN missions, but instead of a briefing on a place we need briefings on anybody this staffer, Lindsay, may have confided in outside the office.

“Second on our countdown, is finding out if her death could have been caused by the implant. If so, was it accidental? If not accidental, how was it triggered? It may have just been shitty luck, the mic harbored bacteria and she died of what appeared to be natural causes. We can’t rule out that the device was primed and triggered remotely. If it could be, then was it cyanide, which we all know is the preferred method of the octo-wussies? A small detonation? That seems like a message as opposed to a quiet removal of surplus-to-requirement human microphones.”

Tony paused, sensing Jason’s forthcoming response on “human microphones,” and switched tack.

“DaNeesha, I think the surgeons can remove it without causing permanent damage. You should know, however, that while we believe we’re blocking all possible incoming and outgoing signal, it’s possible there is a failsafe that could trigger when we attempt removal. Barnes, can you speak to the likelihood of that happening?”

“Uh, yeah," Barnes started. "Yeah. Telling people what to expect from Hydra so we can protect the good guys and make the bad guys pay is what separates me from those sacks of shit. Sassy, I know saying ‘we don’t know enough’ is like betting against the house here. But I don’t like this. For one thing, it wouldn’t surprise me if there’s a dead man’s switch. If you try to take it out it may go up because of a mechanism embedded within the tubing. That’s what I’d do—it is Steve, and you know it—because it doesn’t need to be hardly anything. Even if you had a blast radius of one damn inch, you’ve probably killed your target and maimed the arms of the surgeon poking around. But I think we’re missing the bigger picture here. The bigger picture is the cost/benefit analysis. Specifically, what if DaNeesha is a gambit so we don’t look for a bigger leak?”

Everybody straightened up. Quickly. Barnes was on to something and he kept going.

“Tony, when we met Col. Potter she asked us something weird, and then told us something even weirder. I’ll be honest, after all the shit went down with Jess I didn’t come back to it. But I am now, because I think I, _we_ , have missed something critical.” Bucky stuck his left hand in his pocket and walked a bit while he talked. “Kathleen came to our room and I was able to confirm that she had been my target. But she was sort of famous, for being the one I didn’t kill. Anyway, she came to tell Steve something about this mission. And she came to apologize for the breach of protocol.”

He looked up at Steve, who felt like he was having flashbacks in a centrifuge; spinning and still at the same time. Preparing to serve with the UN Peacekeeping Forces. Bucky running for exfil with his hair flying. Pickup trucks throwing goddamned _animals_ everywhere. Dust. Trucks. Kids. Babies. Machine guns. Recon with Dr. Death. Tony lifting him up through the window. Smoking. Jess getting smaller as hostiles swarm the position. Hands slipping in blood, watching Barton bleed out on the floor of the plane. Potter’s weight against his arms as he holds her steady on the floor. The Winter Soldier sitting where Bucky’s warm body used to be.

Steve closed his eyes and tried to block out only the moment he needed to see. Kathleen sitting next to him at the table. Bucky on the bed, wan and remorseful in the face of the doctor’s friendly absolution for his crimes. Her apology that he hadn’t been…briefed.

“Buck, she said it was a breach in protocol. That the Outfit had notified us, because it was a decision undertaken by herself and Rhodes.”

“He wasn’t there,” Tony began, “because we certainly wouldn’t have turned down help like that. And Rhodey would have come. I know he would have.”

“That’s what’s bothering you, isn’t it, Buck?” Steve asked.

Barnes was still pacing a little, like the answer would be in front of him the next time he opened his eyes.

“Yeah. Stopping the ragtag asshole brigade at Moorad was technically under the UN’s jurisdiction. But Kathleen said a bunch of stuff we blew off at the time. She said she and Rhodes had made a joint decision for her to go and help. She also said, verbatim, that she was being extra weird while working with our team to disguise “one or two key factors.” That’s exactly what she said. And I think I might have figured out the reason she was there.”

“Because I don’t attend meetings and I was in France.”

Everyone stopped and looked at DaNeesha. She was sitting upright now. She rolled her eyes a bit at Bucky’s smile.

“You’re not gonna hurt my feelings over there, Prince. It’s okay. I get it. There were a lot of high level shenanigans playing out and I couldn’t have unknowingly passed on anything about that because you guys had me do a false report, right? I figured it when I looked at a map and saw the cities I wrote about for Nat were nowhere near any other settlement or village you were helping. Then I got sent to France, which, if you think about it, was so super nice of you all, especially Ms. Potts, no offense Tony but she’s like, everything.

"But anyway…if the usual reward for the Best PA of the Year came with a trip to France, people would know about it, you know? Like, no incentive package, no Twitter wars for best assistant, nobody else had ever posted pics on Instagram or anything. I didn't even read a hashtag, like a 'Best PA' thing. So, when I found out about the mic…I mean, I just hope I didn’t take someone else’s planned trip."

Eddie turned to DaNeesha, wearing a scowl that Daisuke had said was "Bert Facing." Steve watched one episode of Sesame Street and agreed, Bert Facing was accurate.

"FINE, Eddie, I would have stolen that trip from the Pope himself. I’m totally not sorry and would do it again. And Jason, boo, I never needed a bodyguard til then. You better not be lovin’ on me because this is some weird undercover assignment thing.” She tapped her fingers against his leg. She almost completely hid the fear that her joke was not a joke.

Steve was surprised to see Barnes smiling when he said, “She’s so much smarter than we are, we all know that, right?” Everybody nodded. Tony was absently running his right hand over his face.

“If something huge was happening there, and we accept that information wasn’t leaked, and the dubious explanation that Kathleen figured out the problem with a map…why would she and Rhodey have to undertake this in such a way that it’s secret and costs lives? Since when do soldiers undertake missions that their COs have forbidden?”

Barnes turned around to speak but Steve beat him to it.

“When the CO doesn’t care that good people will die.”

Bucky shook his head. “Nah. This ain’t Azzano, Stevie. I think it’s much, much worse this time. I went looking for what possible reason two decorated officers with such different skill sets would go off the reservation for this type of mission.”

Tony addressed his AI. “J, is there anyone with direct capability to shut Rhodes and Potter down for a mission such as that one?”

“Sir, there was, in fact, one person that would have been in a position to receive intelligence on the ground and assemble a team to respond. According to an internal memo a Pentagon secretary filed the morning Col. Potter flew to see you, one direct order was issued from Capitol Hill regarding the position of the United States Military in UN-backed coalition warfare. That memo specifically states that no aide is to be given the Avengers or other UN-sanctioned operatives with fifty miles of Moorad. In other words, Col. Rhodes would have been subject to court martial had he attempted to help, sir. Even acting as a civilian would not have been possible, as the War Machine suit technically belongs to the government.”

“Jarv, who the hell is that man that said Potter couldn’t give us the intelligence she did, and Rhodey couldn’t help us?”

There was a brief pause, then a color photo lit up the TV screen.

“This man, sir. The current United States Secretary of Defense, Alexander Goodwin Pierce.”

 

********

George was too tired to watch the rest of the Christmas Special. He couldn’t focus for as long, as well, as he wanted to. Esther had told him there was plenty to save for her next visit and had asked Mr. Jarvis to arrange for her to be taken home. She switched the TV back over to the nightly news and gave him a quick kiss before heading towards the elevator.

George realized with a start that he had never gotten around to giving her the piece of jewelry he had painstakingly selected. It was time and past time to be getting on with that. He took a moment to write that note to himself in a small notebook he was using to keep track of medication doses. Suddenly, the television sounded very familiar to him.

“Mr. Jarvis, is that my girlfriend on the television set?”

There was a very brief pause.

“Indeed it is, George. Shall I rewind the segment for you?”

“If you would, please.”

It was clear that Esther had been walking out the front door of the building, and that Everhart woman with long blonde hair and an expression like a horse was pestering her. She was calling Esther by name, asking if she was there to see him, George Miles, the son of a Nazi collaborator. Esther had stood in the lights of the cameras, dazed, and then she turned to the blonde horsey one and spoke plainly.

“Hi, is this the camera I talk to? Yes? Ms. Everhart? Oh, very good, I’ve never been on television before, so I do hope I’m doing this correctly.”

The reporter nodded gleefully and Esther continued.

“You asked if I was here to see the son of the Nazi collaborator? Well, young lady, I’m going to clarify my business here at Stark Tower once and for all, then I expect you to never, ever impose upon me again. My name is Esther Berman, Brooklynite born and raised, and yes. Yes, I am most certainly here to visit George Miles because his mother was not a Nazi collaborator, his mother was a lovely English lady who taught George to sew, and cried when he moved to New York to be a tailor, and gave him her very best pin cushion anyway because that’s how mothers do. George’s mother Edith was a caring and loving adoptive mother. George believes so much in the power of adoption that when life didn’t see fit to provide him with a son he went out and adopted one of his own, and that young man will never need to doubt the love and care his adoptive family has for him. I cannot speak as to the lady who birthed George, but Edith and Phillip did a bang-up job as parents.” Esther sniffed just a touch, thinking of George’s parents and how this would have hurt them.

“Esther,” Christine Everhart leered, smelling blood in the water, “are you certain you can stand by your man, as we learn sordid details of a family’s life in service to Hitler?”

Esther squared her shoulders and looked straight at that horse-faced bitch.

“I really, really hope so, lady, ‘cause he’s the fucking love of my life.”

 

 

Mr. Jarvis stopped the playback as George sat on his bed.

“Mr. Jarvis, would you please tell Ms. Potts I require the services of Event Planning at their earliest convenience? I suddenly have an engagement ring burning a most urgent hole in my metaphoric pocket.”

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
